Familiar View Research Articles

Epistemic normativity without epistemic teleology

AbstractThis article is concerned with a puzzle that arises from three initially plausible assumptions that form an inconsistent triad: (i) Epistemic reasons are normative reasons (normativism); (ii) reasons are normative only if conformity with them is good (the reasons/value‐link); (iii) conformity with epistemic reasons need not be good (the nihilist assumption). I start by defending the reasons/value‐link, arguing that normativists need to reject the nihilist assumption. I then argue that the most familiar view that denies the nihilist assumption—epistemic teleology—is untenable. Finally, I consider two alternative ways of accounting for the goodness of conformity with epistemic reasons: it may be good because it accords with the virtue of reasons‐responsiveness, and it may be good because it is good to conform with normative reasons as such. I argue that both of these conceptions avoid the problems of epistemic teleology and merit serious consideration as potential solutions to the puzzle.

‘Fouled by Oil’? Oil Diplomacy and the Lausanne Conference, 1914–1928

The centenary of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty has seen historians challenge the familiar view of this re-settlement of the defeated Ottoman Empire as an enduring success, drawing attention to the ways in which the treaty validated a mandatory population exchange, now viewed as a form of ethnic cleansing. This reappraisal of Lausanne’s place in fashioning a new Middle East order has yet to address oil diplomacy. Competition among governments, oil companies and concession-hunters for rights to the oil of the former Ottoman Empire, in particular Mosul, inspired considerable speculation at the 1922–3 Lausanne Conference, and continues to fuel conspiracy theories surrounding Lausanne’s ‘secret clauses’. A tendency to tell the history of oil diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century from the perspective of nation-states has made it difficult to explain the success with which emerging MNEs manipulated host governments, rather than being tools in the hands of statesmen pursuing energy security/energy independence. This essay argues that we need to assign oil companies greater agency if we want to understand the emergence of a global oil cartel.

A narrative review of current and future of Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic (UBE) transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion

With the ongoing development of Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic (UBE) spine surgery, it has become standard of care at many centers across the globe for lumbar decompressions and discectomies due to minimal muscle damage, minimal postoperative back pain and early recovery. In UBE, the separation of viewing portal and working portal allows greater freedom of movement for the surgical instruments as the camera and instruments move independently providing unrestricted vision. Moreover, the continuous irrigation fluid pressure decreases bleeding and helps to irrigate out the bone debris. Hence, UBE spine surgery has become quite popular and has expanded its indications to lumbar spinal fusion. The adoption of UBE for conventional spine surgeons into their routine practice is relatively easier than uniportal endoscopy because of use of standard arthroscopic lenses, familiar view of anatomy, and use of conventional open spinal instruments. In this article, we review the current literature and discuss the indications, contraindications, clinical outcomes, complications and compare it with existing minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion.

Landscape and the Moving Image, by Catherine Elwes

How do we experience and appreciate landscapes when we know too much about them? Looking over a familiar view, we begin to note the intrusive presence of countless threats—climate change, urban sprawl, and deforestation to name but a few—that seem to linger on the edge of the frame, revealing each landscape to be unstable, at risk, and subject to the creeping or sudden onset of massive change. Likewise, increasing awareness of the violent histories that are now acknowledged to underpin and define seemingly innocuous landscapes challenges not only the possibility of contemplation and leisure within these landscapes, but also brings feelings of guilt, grief and anxiety to bear upon spaces that were not previously acknowledged to host such emotions.

Supraretinacular endoscopic carpal tunnel release: A safe alternative method for treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Supraretinacular endoscopic carpal tunnel release (SRECTR) is a technique in which an endoscope is inserted superficial to the flexor retinaculum through a subcutaneous tunnel. The benefits of this method include a clear view for the surgeon and absence of median nerve compression. Surgeons can operate with a familiar view of the flexor retinaculum and median nerve downward, similar to open surgery. This study aimed to investigate the learning curve for SRECTR, an alternate method for carpal tunnel release, and evaluate its complications and the functional outcomes using a disposable commercial kit. We examined the open conversion rates and complications associated with SRECTR in 200 consecutive patients performed by two surgeons. We compared the operative time operated by a single surgeon. We evaluated outcomes in 191 patients according to Kelly's grading system. Patients' mean follow-up period was 12.7 months. Nine patients required conversion to open surgery. There were no injuries to the nerves and tendons and no hematoma or incomplete dissection of the flexor retinaculum. The operative times varied between 11 and 34 minutes. We obtained the following results based on Kelly's grading of outcomes: excellent in 116, good in 59, fair in 13, and poor in 3 patients. We found no patients with neurapraxia, major nerve injury, flexor tendon injury, superficial palmar arch injury, and hematoma. Although there was a learning curve associated with SRECTR, we performed 200 consecutive cases without neurovascular complications. This method may be a safe alternative to minimally invasive carpal tunnel surgery.

Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics by Arash Abizadeh

Reviewed by: Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics by Arash Abizadeh S. A. Lloyd Arash Abizadeh. Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 288. Cloth, $99.99. Arash Abizadeh's main thesis is that Hobbes severed juridical obligation—a covenant-created practice of second-personal accountability—from allegedly prudential natural law, marking a "watershed" separation of the right from the good. Daniel Eggers ("Liberty and Contractual Obligation in Hobbes," Hobbes Studies 22 [2009]: 70–103), Mark Peacock ("Obligation and Advantage in Hobbes' Leviathan," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40 [2010]: 433–458), and David D. Raphael ("Hobbes on Justice," in Perspectives on Hobbes, edited by G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan, Oxford, 1988, 153–70) fruitfully explored that thesis. The proposed independence is doubtful because natural law both underwrites and constrains covenant: "a covenant, if lawful, binds by the force of natural law . . . if unlawful, binds not at all" (Latin Leviathan, xiv.33). If Hobbes had justified covenanting by this practice's promotion of our good, Rawls's classic "Two Concepts of Rules" explains how a practice (like promising) can entail owing things to particular others who have authority to demand them, even when/ if justified by appeal to the good. It would be a mistake to construe a goodness-justified practice of covenanting as an entirely independent ethics of rightness, as Abizadeh proposes. What this conspicuously-erudite, contemporary-distinction-packed effort ultimately provides is the familiar view that Hobbes's laws of nature are precepts of prudence directing individuals toward their alpha-good of commodious self-preservation. Abizadeh implausibly claims that interpreters widely suppose Hobbesian prudence includes only bare avoidance of death, not of misery, the deprivation of a "commodious life" (135). He rebrands this latter notion "felicity," which, in line with the "egoist-hedonist psychology" he attributes to Hobbes (229), is the mental pleasure experienced in hopefully anticipating (imagining) the satisfaction of one's future desires based on past successes. His differentiation of Hobbes's notion of felicity from related historical conceptions echoes James Hamilton's "Hobbes on Felicity" (Hobbes Studies 29 [2016], 129–47). All prudential interpretations are hard-pressed to explain how laws of nature—if self-preservation-centric—can have purchase on the many ordinary, rational citizens with (often politically destabilizing) transcendent interests, making them willing, if necessary, to lose their lives for loved-ones' welfare, personal honor, salvation, posthumous fame, or righteous causes. S. A. Lloyd's Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Cambridge, [End Page 174] 2009) extensively documented textual evidence, and developed arguments against any inescapable, overriding concern for bodily self-preservation, in favor of understanding the natural desire for self-preservation as merely morally blameless. Abizadeh reproduces much of this. David Johnston, in The Rhetoric of Leviathan (Princeton, 1986), recognized that people often do not prioritize self-preservation, and hypothesized that Hobbes sought to debunk all religion as superstition so that governments could retrain humans to become the self-preservation-centered rational egoists needed for a state's threat of capital punishment reliably to compel their obedience. Famously, Bernard Gert ("Hobbes on Reason," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 [2001]: 243–57, and elsewhere), argued that Hobbes offered an objective morality whereby reason requires that we pursue our preservation and broader prudential good regardless of our desires. Abizadeh adopts Gert's position. A serious difficulty is that Hobbes nowhere states any normative requirement to desire and pursue one's own good or preservation. On Abizadeh's account, the laws of nature become precepts for securing self-preservation and felicity (137, 188). Felicity may include pleasures from anticipatorily imagining satisfaction of a desire to preserve honor at the cost of capital punishment, or for suicidal relief from misery. This incoherently renders laws of nature prudential precepts for both self-preservation and voluntary self-destruction. Problematically, pursuit of felicity can, depending on desires, license vicious actions forbidden by natural law. Abizadeh cannot establish that natural laws bind only those whose felicity does not require violating them, because Hobbes insists they bind everyone with reason enough for self-government. Abizadeh needs the strategies for self-preservation and felicity never to diverge, so he stipulates it: "felicity can...

Simultaneous robotic surgery with low anterior resection and prostatectomy/hysterectomy.

Cooperation with multiple departments is essential for the treatment of patients with rectal cancer and other pelvic cancers. In our department, we experienced two cases of rectal cancer that underwent robotic low anterior resection (LAR) and simultaneous resection of other pelvic organs (case 1 with prostatectomy and case 2 with hysterectomy) using the da Vinci Xi system. Here, we show the precise procedures of these two robotic surgeries. Under general anesthesia and lithotomy position, five da Vinci ports were symmetrically placed along the umbilical horizontal line with a 7cm interval, and a 5mm AirSeal Access Port was added in the right or left upper quadrant. Patients were placed with 22-degree Trendelenburg and 8-degree tilt to the right. The operators used the center port on the umbilicus as a camera port and chose the docking arms with either two-left-one-right or one-left-two-right setting depending on their preference. This port setting was quite useful for the operators from multiple departments to change the docking arms, even if their preference may be different. Moreover, assistants could use the remaining two ports to provide a well-expanded and safer surgical field. "With a familiar view" and "with a wide view" are our two concepts to safely perform extended pelvic surgeries. We have employed this symmetrical horizontal port site position as a general setting for usual rectal surgeries.

رؤیة تحلیلیة للأمن المادی للمبانی الشرطیة فی مصر من الواجهة المعماریة

With the Egyptian ministry of Interior tightening the security procedures of the police buildings and exaggerating the design of these buildings physical security elements, the main features of cities and the urban nature of them were distorted; in addition the Ministry of Interior incurred heavy costs for insurance. Because the general impression is the low level of police buildings physical security, the familiar view of the mental image is typical and repetitive; this research came to analyze the physical security elements of those buildings in an attempt to change the philosophy of physical insurance for police buildings in Egypt. The research followed the comparative analytical approach in analyzing the physical security elements of local and international police buildings in accordance with the different variables surrounding each building, to identiy the various alternatives of the physical security elements and to prove that the physical security of police buildings in Egypt is not optimal and that they are just rigid templates apply standard criteria.

Diplomacy and Its Others: The Case of Korean Comfort Women

The “Comfort Women incident,” now at least several decades old, troubles the familiar view of law as a funnel for politics. Viewed as a funnel, the wide range of legal, political, cultural, and diplomatic efforts to seek or resist redress for the system of sexual slavery institutionalized by the Japanese military during the Second World War would be assessed as ultimately pushing in the same direction: toward vindicating human rights. We see in the Comfort Women incident a far more chaotic interaction of law and politics. As critical legal feminist, we are concerned with finding a truthful and ethical way to respond to the horrors of sexual slavery, while also recognizing that claims on behalf of victims are often appropriated by nationalist, imperialist, and capitalist agendas. The first step in our project on the place of multi-situational law in a multi-situational politics of responses to the Comfort Women issue, this brief presentation identifies what we term the diplomatic style and analyses its collision with the constitutional law style in a landmark 2011 judgment of the Constitutional Court of Korea. In contrast to the reluctance of courts in many countries to intervene in foreign affairs, the Constitutional Court held that the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, former Korean Comfort Women, required the Korean government to use the dispute settlement provisions in a bilateral treaty to seek compensation for the plaintiffs from the government of Japan. Legal scholars tend not to separate out courts’ assumptions about the nature of diplomacy as one reason for their hands-off approach to foreign affairs, as distinct from concerns about law on the one hand and politics on the other. We show that focusing on diplomacy and the diplomatic style helps us to think about the implications of the Constitutional Court’s more interventionist approach. The relationship of law to politics becomes, as with the relationship of diplomacy to politics, more of an eddy than a funnel. It is on this point that we perceive a glimmer of feminist hope in the decision.

Becoming a world Christian: Hospitality as a framework for engaging Otherness

Hospitality is the Christian imperative of welcoming the stranger to our table, which serves as a living metaphor for the salvation God extends to all of us, welcoming us as sinners to his table of abundance. As we transition from the era of missions to the era of world Christianity, a hospitality framework is helpful for the concomitant task of developing world Christians. In this article I describe a Hospitality Project I assigned that required my students to read and reflect on the Christian practice of hospitality, and then to extend hospitality to someone from another culture. I suggest that hospitality is an appropriate framework for the development of world Christians because it cultivates empathy through intentional listening and learning, is inherently reciprocal as all bring gifts to the table, and engenders transformation because it forces us to leave familiar structures and view life through the eyes of the Other.

Good and Everlasting Friends: Letter-Writing and Friendship in a "Boy-Saving" Reform Endeavor in Progressive-Era America, 1896 to 1906

This essay examines the familiar and intimate correspondence between poor boys from America's industrial cities (ages twelve to eighteen) who were confined to the George Junior Republic, a Progressive-Era juvenile reform program, and Thomas Mott Osborne, the organization's board chairman and wealthy benefactor. By focusing on the social act of writing letters and the relationships these acts engendered, it uncovers the dynamic interplay of interest, power, and feelings in the relationships of the boys and their patron Osborne. In doing so, the essay complicates the more familiar view of such relationships as instruments of social control. Regarding the "friendships" as the boys and Osborne believed them to be—that is, as actual friendships—reveals the intense emotional ties that bound the boys and their older and more powerful benefactor across hierarchies of age, class, and ethnicity. The letters show that friendship between the comparatively powerful and powerless was not only possible; it also tempered the inequalities of incarceration and enabled the boys to resist the more coercive instruments of uplift by declaring their right to sympathy, compassion, and love.

View-sensitive ERP repetition effects indicate automatic holistic processing of spatially unattended objects

This study examined the properties of ERP effects elicited by unattended (spatially uncued) objects using a short-lag repetition-priming paradigm. Same or different common objects were presented in a yoked prime-probe trial either as intact images or slightly scrambled (half-split) versions. Behaviourally, only objects in a familiar (intact) view showed priming. An enhanced negativity was observed at parietal and occipito-parietal electrode sites within the time window of the posterior N250 after the repetition of intact, but not split, images. An additional post-hoc N2pc analysis of the prime display supported that this result could not be attributed to differences in salience between familiar intact and split views. These results demonstrate that spatially unattended objects undergo visual processing but only if shown in familiar views, indicating a role of holistic processing of objects that is independent of attention.

Abstract P6-08-10: Mutational signatures impact the breast cancer transcriptome and distinguish mitotic from immune response pathways

Abstract A comprehensive whole genome analysis of a large breast cancer cohort of 560 cases (Nik-Zainal et al, submitted 2015) reports novel and existing DNA substitution and rearrangement signatures next a comprehensive list of events driving the breast cancer cell to its malignant potency. In the current study, we linked the observed genetic diversity to the breast cancer transcriptome for 260 cases for which whole genome and whole transcriptome data were both available. Cluster analysis of the global gene expression showed the familiar view of a coherent basal-like and a heterogeneous luminal subgroup. New and previously reported1 subtype-specific aberrations with concordant expression changes were found in TP53, PIK3CA, PTEN, CCND1, CDH1 and GATA3, and mutations in PIK3CA, PTEN, AKT1 and AKT2 were mutually exclusive confirming they are active in the same pathway in breast cancer. Integrating the identified DNA substitutions signatures with the transcriptome, we observed that the total number of substitutions in a cancer, irrespective of substitution type, was positively associated with cell cycle regulated gene expression and with adverse outcome. In addition and more remarkably, we observed that the number substitution of two substitution signatures2 particularly associated with immune-response specific gene expression, with increased amount of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes and with a better outcome. These two signatures comprised 1) mutations of the APOBEC-type (predominant C>G in a TCN context), and 2) mutations which lacks specific features but which are strongly associated with genetic and epigenetic inactivating aberrations in BRCA1 and BRCA2. Thus, while earlier reports3-5 imply that the sheer number of driver events triggers an immune-response, we refine this statement by observing that substitutions of a particular type are much very effective in doing so explaining the superior outcome of cancer having these particular types of substitutions. This result also implies that purposefully augmenting T-cell reactivity against amino-acid substitutions resulting from either of these two DNA substitution types could potentially improve immunotherapies in breast cancer. 1. Comprehensive molecular portraits of human breast tumours. Nature 490, 61-70 (2012). 2. Alexandrov, L.B., et al. Signatures of mutational processes in human cancer. Nature 500, 415-421 (2013). 3. Rizvi, N.A., et al. Cancer immunology. Mutational landscape determines sensitivity to PD-1 blockade in non-small cell lung cancer. Science 348, 124-128 (2015). 4. Schumacher, T.N. & Schreiber, R.D. Neoantigens in cancer immunotherapy. Science 348, 69-74 (2015). 5. Snyder, A., et al. Genetic basis for clinical response to CTLA-4 blockade in melanoma. N Engl J Med 371, 2189-2199 (2014). Citation Format: Martens JWM, Smid M, Rodríguez-González G, Sieuwerts AM, Prager-Van der Smissen WJC, Van Der Vlugt - Daane M, Van Galen A, Nik-Zainal S, Staaf J, Brinkman AB, Van de Vijver MJ, Richardson AL, Berentsen K, Caldas C, Butler A, Martin S, Davies HD, Debets R, Meijer-Van Gelder ME, Van Deurzen CHM, Ramakrishna MR, Ringnér M, Viari A, Birney E, Børresen-Dale A-L, Stunnenberg HG, Stratton M, Foekens JA. Mutational signatures impact the breast cancer transcriptome and distinguish mitotic from immune response pathways. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-08-10.

Signal Use by Octopuses in Agonistic Interactions

Cephalopods show behavioral parallels to birds and mammals despite considerable evolutionary distance [1, 2]. Many cephalopods produce complex body patterns and visual signals, documented especially in cuttlefish and squid, where they are used both in camouflage and a range of interspecific interactions [1, 3-5]. Octopuses, in contrast, are usually seen as solitary and asocial [6, 7]; their body patterns and color changes have primarily been interpreted as camouflage and anti-predator tactics [8-12], though the familiar view of the solitary octopus faces a growing list of exceptions. Here, we show by field observation that in a shallow-water octopus, Octopus tetricus, a range of visible displays are produced during agonistic interactions, and these displays correlate with the outcome of those interactions. Interactions in which dark body color by an approaching octopus was matched by similar color in the reacting octopus were more likely to escalate to grappling. Darkness in an approaching octopus met by paler color in the reacting octopus accompanied retreat of the paler octopus. Octopuses also displayed on high ground and stood with spread web and elevated mantle, often producing these behaviors in combinations. This study is the first to document the systematic use of signals during agonistic interactions among octopuses. We show prima facie conformity of our results to an influential model of agonistic signaling [13]. These results suggest that interactions have a greater influence on octopus evolution than has been recognized and show the importance of convergent evolution in behavioral traits.

History manifested: making sense of unprecedented change

An essential element usually passes unnoticed in recent discussion about how history as an academic discipline is supposed to be relevant for the shaping of our public life. It is the concept of history itself (history as both the course of events and historical writing) that underlies the whole discussion, which also configures the two currently most influential and fashionable efforts to reinstate the public relevance of history: The History Manifesto, co-authored by Jo Guldi and David Armitage, and Hayden White's The Practical Past. In advising to turn to the past in order to shape the present and the future, both books rely on the familiar developmental view that characterised nineteenth-century thinking in general, and on which the discipline of history became institutionalised in particular. The author's main contention in this essay is that turning to this notion of history is not the solution for the problem of the supposed public irrelevance of professional historical studies, but the problem itself. The developmental view, based on a presumption of a deeper continuity provided by the subject of the historical process that retains its self-identity amid all changes, certainly suited the discipline of history when it was engaged in the project of nation-building. However, it hardly fits our present concerns. These concerns, like the Anthropocene, take the shape of unprecedented change, and what they challenge is precisely the deeper continuity of the developmental view. The discipline of history can regain public relevance only insofar as it proves to be able to exhibit a thinking of its own specificity which can nevertheless explain such unprecedented changes. What such historical thinking could provide is what the developmental view can no longer: the possibility to act upon a story that we can believe.

Daniel P. Barr. A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744–1794.

In A Colony Sprung from Hell, Daniel P. Barr tells the story of the struggle for authority in the lands surrounding the forks of the Ohio River (modern-day Pittsburgh) in the second half of the eighteenth century. He contends that the disputes over power that marked this region were a product of the chronic inability of provincial, imperial, or national authorities to effectively govern the western Pennsylvania frontier. Barr highlights how governments lacked the legitimacy or resources to impose their will over the region and that war and social conflict undermined whatever efforts they did muster. Moreover, in response to the repeated failures of external entities to provide order, the region's growing population of white settlers developed a localist political culture that was suspicious of outsiders, placed local needs before the interests of outside authorities, and, as a result, hampered governments' efforts to assert control. Barr's book joins a number of recent borderland studies that portray early America's frontier zones as places sought after and influenced by many, but controlled by none. Thus, A Colony Sprung from Hell does not so much break new ground as add a valuable case study to a now familiar view of the backcountry. Through his analysis of the contest over the Ohio forks, Barr provides an excellent window into the complex, multi-faceted nature of the battle for property and power along the early American frontier. He shows that the conflict involved various Native American nations, the provinces (and later states) of Pennsylvania and Virginia, ordinary settlers, powerful land speculators, British imperial officials, and, finally, the government of the United States.

Priming of object detection under continuous flash suppression depends on attention but not on part-whole configuration.

Previous research has shown that the identification of visual objects can rely on both view-dependent, holistic as well as view-independent, analytic representation, depending on visual attention. Here, we asked whether the initial conscious detection of objects reveals similar dependencies and may therefore share similar perceptual mechanisms. We used continuous flash suppression to render objects presented in familiar views invisible at the beginning of a trial and recorded the time these target objects needed to break into awareness. Target objects were preceded by spatially attended or unattended primes that were either shown in the same familiar view as the targets or horizontally split (i.e., with their halves swapping positions) in order to disrupt holistic processing. Relative to an unprimed baseline, suppression times were shorter for all priming conditions. Although spatial attention enhanced this priming effect on access to awareness, even unattended primes facilitated awareness of a related target, indicating that object detection does not fully concur with the idea of attention-demanding analytic object representations. Moreover, priming effects were of similar strength for primes shown in the same familiar view as the targets and for horizontally split primes, indicating that holistic (template-like) representations do not play an integral role in object detection. These results suggest that the initial detection of an object relies on representations of object features rather than holistic representations used for recognition. The perceptual mechanisms mediating conscious object detection are therefore markedly different from those underlying object identification.

Aida and the Empire of Emotions (Theodor W. Adorno, Edward Said, and Alexander Kluge)

For Alexander Kluge (1) Let's start with the facts: two lovers are buried alive, their lungs are full of gas from the crypt; they are cramped with hunger and, as they perish, decay does its unspeakable work on their bodies. In the end, there are two skeletons, one now indifferent to the other. I am describing the end of an opera as Thomas Mann described it in a chapter from The Magic Mountain on the "Fullness of Harmony." (2) His point in 1924 was simple but critical. Surrounded by his desert-island disks, Castorp listens to a record of the last scene of Verdi's Aida over and over again, yet oblivious to the facts: he hears only the beauty and power of the music. Whatever the suffering of Aida and Radames, no trace of it reaches his ear. Or does it: is the fullness of harmony really enough for Castorp to forget the facts? 1. This essay investigates how Theodor W. Adorno, Edward Said, and Alexander Kluge read Verdi's opera Aida with respect to the theme of being buried alive, where being buried alive can occur not only to characters in an opera but, according to a discourse of fate, also to the opera itself. To write about being buried alive but living as it were to tell the tale, the three critics ask whether a residue of resistance in the opera remains that allows the opera to escape a totalizing discourse of fate or fatality that threatens to destroy it. I begin by presenting the more familiar views of Adorno and Said, although hopefully in a new light. After that, I present and develop the less familiar view (in an Anglo-American musicological context) of the Frankfurt filmmaker and critical theorist, Alexander Kluge. To focus on the work of these three exemplary critics is to show what it means to offer a critical reading of an opera that takes Aida as its example. This is the focus of my essay. To offer a critical reading is to refuse to take the opera at face value, which means in part, as it appears on the stage. The point is, nothing should be taken at face value, and certainly not a work of art. The three critics refuse in interestingly different ways. Adorno and Kluge read the opera against its grain first, with the aim, second, to find buried in its tomb the fragile terms of its resistant meanings or gestures. How they differ from one another is more subtle than how they jointly differ from Said, who engages the first task but not, as far as I can tell, the second. In general, critical theorists seek in an opera its aesthetic-political contradiction, blind spot, or tragic knot in order to undo it. The rescue of the opera, if such is possible, depends on how the knot is undone. The knot may be variously undone. One way is to show how the woman protagonist who, though almost completely undone by the opera, may still be heard as undoing that which undoes her. Another way is to refuse the opera's triumphant ending to subvert the inevitable closure to which the opera seems at first sight musically and dramatically to lead. A third way, which I develop here as the authorial thread of this essay, disrupts the explicit alliances that are set up between opera and nationhood, especially to the extent that these alliances suggest a history of fated nations. For critical theorists, the social significance of a great artwork--and Aida is exemplary--lies in its immanent potential to rescue itself from being experienced as merely "a thing of the past," which is to say, as a "museum piece" that no longer has meaning for us in the present. 2. In January 1929, the young Adorno positively reviewed a new Frankfurt production of Aida conducted by Clemens Krauss. (3) He commented particularly on the liveliness of the production by which he meant its non-dustiness. 1929 was a year in which opera was often proclaimed to be in a crisis, in fact to be in a moribund condition. Adorno wondered whether it was still possible to produce traditional operas in the grand old style. …

“There’s No Place Like Home”: An American Koan

Abstract: I use the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz as an occasion to reflect on the various ways a desire for ultimate fulfillment is configured in religion. Typically, the film’s climactic motto—“There’s no place like home”—is taken as a straightforward expression of the familiar view that fulfillment is the result of a quest, the yearning that takes Dorothy to Oz and back again. There is another religious paradigm, however, that presents fulfillment as a matter of “non-attainment,” or a quality that is inalienably immanent. My argument is that the film as a whole (and this motto in particular) contains a sophisticated critique of its own surface meaning, in which the desire for “real life elsewhere” is brought into tension with the intuition of a meaning that can never be lost.

Visionary Hope

Visionary Hope