Female Witnesses Research Articles

Sex-specific behavioral, cardiac, and neuroendocrine responses to repeated witness social stress in adult rats

In humans, sex disparities exist in the prevalence of social stress-related disorders, yet our understanding of the predisposing factors and underlying mechanisms is still elusive. Also at the preclinical level, the investigation of sex differences in social stress responses is limited. In this study, adult male and female wild-type Groningen rats were repeatedly exposed to witness social defeat stress (WS) to assess sex-specific behavioral, neuroendocrine, and cardiac responses to the same social stress paradigm. Male and female rats bore witness to an aggressive social defeat episode between two males for nine consecutive days or were exposed to a control (CTR) procedure. Stress-related parameters were assessed in correspondence to the first and last WS/CTR exposure and also during subsequent exposure to the stress context alone in the absence of social defeat. During WS, rats of both sexes displayed larger amounts of burying behavior and smaller amounts of rearing and grooming behaviors, but with a greater extent in female witnesses. Cardiac autonomic responses to WS were similar between the sexes, yet only females displayed higher plasma corticosterone levels after the first WS exposure compared to CTRs, and had a larger corticosterone increase than male witnesses upon repeated WS. Exposure to the stress context alone (i.e., without the presence of the aggressive resident rat) elicited greater amount of burying behavior and more pronounced and persistent tachycardic responses in females than males with a history of WS. Our findings suggest sex-disparities in the response of adult rats to WS at multiple behavioral, cardiac, and neuroendocrine levels, highlighting the utility of this social stress paradigm for investigating predisposing factors and pathophysiological mechanisms underlying sex-specific vulnerabilities to stress-related pathologies.

Era of the Female Witness: Jewish Women and the Trial of Klaus Barbie

Abstract In May 1987, Sabine Zlatin and Simone Lagrange became household names in France after they testified against the infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie, “the Butcher of Lyon,” during his trial for crimes against humanity. On the witness stand, Zlatin’s testimony revealed her perseverance as a Polish-Jewish immigrant involved extensively in wartime rescue and resistance. Meanwhile, Lagrange shared her encounters as a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl whom Klaus Barbie tortured. Throughout Barbie’s trial, national and international media outlets reported frequently on Zlatin and Lagrange’s wartime and postwar lives. The enormous media attention the trial received made it a crucial event during the resurgence of Holocaust memory in France, yet what made this trial unique regarding the role of Jewish women as witnesses was its timing in the aftermath of the women’s rights movement. The feminist movement allowed people to better understand the gendered nature of Zlatin and Lagrange’s testimonies and recognize their persecution and perseverance as women during and after the war. Going forward, the centrality of experiences shared by women shaped how the trial would be remembered, and arguably even influenced a greater consideration of crimes against women within the statutes for crimes against humanity.

WOMEN'S TESTIMONY IN THE QUR'AN IN ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER'S PERSPECTIVE

Discussions about gender issues in contemporary times are never-ending topics, including in the realm of Islamic studies. This study examines women's testimonies in Asghar Ali Engineer's thoughts, which are analyzed using Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical phenomenological framework. Engineer's thoughts regarding women's testimony are important to discuss because of the dismantling of the discourse he carried out regarding verses with gender connotations in the Al-Qur'an, which often do not follow the mainstream interpretation. This research is library research with qualitative research methods. The primary source for this research is Asghar Ali Engineer's interpretation of verses from women's testimonies, while the secondary sources used are other literature sources that are relevant to the research, both in the form of books and journal articles. This research aims to track and explore Asghar Ali Engineer's thoughts regarding the verses in women's testimonies. The author uses Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology theory in analyzing Asghar Ali's thoughts. The results of this research were the engineer's re-reading of the verse about women's testimony, namely QS. Al-Baqarah/2: 282. In Paul Ricoer's concept of hermeneutical phenomenology, engineers go through a process of decontextualization-recontextualization in order to obtain new meanings that are relevant to the current context. In the decontextualization process, Engineer explained the socio-cultural conditions at the time the verse was revealed, which implied that women lacked knowledge and experience regarding business, so that one additional female witness was needed as a reminder, and it did not fully mean that women's status was half that of men. The recontextualization process includes three stages, namely semantic, reflexive, and existential. In the modern context where women are more educated about financial matters, even more so than men, there is nothing to prevent a woman's position as a witness from being equal to that of a man.

Judicial Practice as Islamic Law: The ʿAmal of Fez in Post-Classical Mālikī Legal Tradition

Abstract ʿAmal (judicial practice) is a critical feature of post-classical Mālikī law in the Maghrib. The scholars who have examined ʿamal contend that it presents a paradigm of Mālikī law’s flexibility and judicial responsiveness to custom (ʿurf). However, ʿamal also constitute a significant part of the regional Islamic juristic literature produced from approximately the 17th to nineteenth centuries. In this article, I examine how ʿamal of Fez became not only widely practiced but part of the mainstream Mālikī jurisprudential discourse in Morocco. I argue that understanding Islamic law’s mechanisms for discursive stability is critical for its well-established capacity to change through principles like ʿamal. I do so by analyzing three practices that contravened the prevailing Mālikī rule yet were widely practiced as ʿamal of Fez: female witnesses for spousal defects, the ṣafqa unilateral shared property sale, and the lafīfiyya twelve-person testimony (plus a fourth “counter-example,” the abandonment of the mutual spousal cursing oath (liʿān), that reinforces the argument). I pay special attention to jurists’ discursive techniques for entrenching ʿamal in Mālikī history and precedence in classical substantive Mālikī rules. In the end, I call to acknowledge ʿamal’s inextricable status as Islamic law in Morocco and beyond.

Femininity, Humor, and TV Comedies: The Wit of Fran Fine, Lorelai Gilmore, and Mrs. Maisel

Women and wit seem to belong together in contemporary TV comedies. But looking more closely at wit reveals that it has undergone a series of transformations in its cultural value as a type of humor, its moral implications, and its meaning. In this article, I bring these shifting, often contradictory, gendered meanings of humorous wit into conversation with the often conflicting representational strategies that have informed the construction of femininity in contemporary mainstream TV comedies, such as Fran Drescher’s The Nanny, and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In my readings of the shows’ central characters, I analyze how certain tropes, such as romance, motherhood, self-defense, or deflection reconcile the sharpness of female wit with traditional femininity.

Perempuan dalam Keluarga: Tafsir Ulang Amina Wadud dan Khaled M. Abou El Fadl

The demands of women when they get married is their role in the domestic sphere. A wife's obligation is to take care of children, cook, clean the house, and serve her husband. While earning a living, making connections and relationships, and duties in the public sphere are obligations for the husband. Nowadays, many women are working, educated and have qualifications above men. Meanwhile, the Qur'an and hadith are often used to position and strengthen women in the domestic sphere. So the need to review the sources of Islamic law to adjust the demands of women in this modern era. Amina Wadud as a feminist thinker from among women, has succeeded in interpreting the verses of the Qur'an according to the perspective of female interpreters. While abou al-fadl as a feminist thinker from among men has seen the abuse of hadith interpreted based on the ego of men. This research uses the literature study method. Data was collected and analysed from several references relevant to the topic.. The results of this study, that amina wadud and abou al-fadl reinterpret the position of women in the family sphere, including men and women have equal status, functional differences, Nusyuz is interpreted disharmoniously, divorce, inheritance division, and female witnesses.

The ‘most maligned’ witness in the Christopher Dawson case: Gender, power, media and legal culture in the digitally distributed live-streamed court

This article analyses the cultural construction of gender in a highly mediated, globally publicised Australian murder trial. Using the tools of multimodal socio-linguistic analysis, it interrogates the construction of a key female witness – known by the legal pseudonym ‘JC’ – in the physical, digitally distributed and livestreamed courtroom and subsequently through the media sphere, including in newspapers, magazines, podcasts, television and social media. It surfaces a victimblaming narrative in relation to alleged child sexual abuse that was an underlying theme in pretrial reporting, a central feature of the defence’s courtroom strategy and cross examination, and subsequently a dominant focus of the mainstream media’s trial coverage. It traces the emergence of a counter-discourse on social media largely propelled by contributors self-identifying as young women, and the radical reframing of the media narrative in response to the court’s verdict. The article also contextualises its findings against a background in which media technologies and media logics are dramatically reshaping the court’s practices and procedures in relation to ‘open justice’, as evidenced by the operation of the virtual media gallery and publicly livestreamed verdict. It concludes that the hyper-gendered narratives that framed the case are not new. Instead, media technologies – including the court’s livestream, and the public’s use of interactive media platforms – have brought new visibility to a longstanding socio-cultural problem. In Australia, R v Christopher Michael Dawson has been widely celebrated as a step forward for gender equality and the treatment of domestic and sexual abuse by and in the media and the legal system. This analysis demonstrates that in reality change is marginal and uneven.

Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History

Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Consequences and Perceived Self-Efficacy in Women and Men Witnesses and Non-Witnesses.

Despite the numerous advances made in Italy over the years in the study of sexual harassment in the workplace (SHW), research has focused exclusively on victims, perpetrators, and their relationships, and not on the consequences that the experience of sexual harassment can produce in witnesses. The present study aims to address this gap by examining how the indirect experience of SHW, in conjunction with variables such as gender, age, self-efficacy, and coping strategies, affects the mental health status of witnesses of SHW. A sample of 724 employees completed a questionnaire that included a modified version of the Sexual Experience Questionnaire (SEQ), the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), and the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RESE). Of the group, 321 participants reported witnessing sexual harassment in the workplace (28.2% of women and 16.2% of men). Results show that witnesses were younger than participants who described themselves as non-witnesses. Results also show that women and men who were witnesses were more likely to suffer the emotional and psychological consequences of the experience than non-witnesses. In addition, female witnesses expressed more positive emotions than men, which enabled them to manage their anxiety and emotional states when triggered in response to sexual harassment in the workplace. Finally, a significant association was found between perceptions of mental health and age, gender, experience with SHW, and self-efficacy strategies. The findings underscore the importance of sexual harassment intervention in the workplace, women and men who witness sexual harassment suffer vicarious experiences, psychological impact, exhaustion, disengagement, and negative feelings.

Household Baseline Survey on Indigenous Chicken Production Characteristics and Constraints in Busia and Machakos Counties of Kenya

Aims: To collect preliminary baseline data prior to validation of three climate-smart technologies.
 Study Design: A structured questionnaire was employed with participation of actors along the Indigenous Chicken value chain.
 Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted from May 2019 to June 2020 within four (4) Sub-Counties in Busia and Machakos where high Indigenous Chicken populations are found.
 Methodology: A total of 160 households were surveyed. Targeted household information was recorded viz: distribution of respondents by village in the Counties; farmer socio-economic factors; flock structure and characteristics; disease and parasite constraints, management practices; disease reporting and communication amongst recruited farmers.
 Results: Results revealed that 56.5% of the respondents were male and 43.5% were female wit mean age of 50 years. Most farmers had formal education (97%) and practiced semi extensive poultry farming system (59%). Both indigenous and exotic chicken (62%) were kept for income purposes (82.6%) and only young chicks received feed supplements (55.8%). Newcastle (18.5%) and coccidiosis (16.4%) comprised the two major disease constraints reported. Prevalent bird disease symptoms were diarrhea (24.9%) and coughing (23.1%) while mites (27.9%) and fleas (22.3%) dominated the ecto-parasites. Disease control strategies comprised: vaccines (72.8%), dewormers (44.9%) and ethno-veterinary medicine. Aloe secundiflora and Aloe feroxin, were singled out as locally available and effective means of treating diarrhea (62.9%), respiratory infections (61.9%) and worm control (64.5%). Most Indigenous Chicken farmers (76.8%) failed to report illnesses among their flock and did not access to health services (72.1%). Farmers accessed health information through radio (26.5%) as opposed to mobile phones (1.65%).
 Conclusion: Findings of this survey reveal a low-grade free-range poultry system characterized by poor disease control. This scenario calls for targeted efforts by both government and private stakeholders to improve Indigenous Chicken management and help farmers adopt alternative climatic smart disease control interventions.

Elevated troponin in patients presenting with atrial fibrillation-could CHA2DS2-Vasc help?

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common reasons that patients visit the emergency department (ED). During the initial investigation, many of these patients are found to have increased troponin levels and it is not clear if this could be an indicator of underlying coronary artery disease (CAD). CHA2DS2-Vasc score is widely used to estimate the thrombotic risk in patients suffering from AF. Purpose To examine any possible relation between the elevated high sensitivity troponin I (hsTnI) observed in patients with AF that visited the ED of our hospital during one year and their CHA2DS2-Vasc score with the presence of underlying CAD. Methods We recorded the patients presenting in the ED with AF for a period of 12 months and found to have elevated troponin during their initial investigation. We calculated the CHA2DS2-Vasc score and then divided the patients in two groups : Group 1 (CHA2DS2-Vasc score >4) and Group 2 (CHA2DS2-Vasc score <4). We recorded the maximum level of hsTnI.All patients underwent noninvasive investigation for coronary artery disease (SPECT or stress ECHO) and when it was indicated coronary angiogram was performed. Results We recorded 428 patients, 256 male and 172 female wit mean age 64 ±10.72 years. Group 1 included 194 patients and group 2 234. We recorded a statisticaly significant difference in the maximum levels of hsTnI between the two groups (Group 1 8742±964.8 pg/ml vs Group2 1324±85.7 pg/ml, p<0.01). In Group 1 the non invasive investigation was suggestive for coronary artery disease in 168 patients (86.8%), whereas in Group 2 in 113 (48.2%)(p<0.05). The patients with positive SPECT or stress ECHO underwent coronary angiography or coronary CT scan. Non significant disease had (Group 1 vs Group 2 ) 17/194(10.11%) vs 75/234(66.37%)(p<0.01), one vessel disease 66/194(39.28%) vs 19/234(16.81%)(p<0.05), two vessels disease 54/194(32.14%) vs 14/234(12.38%) (p<0.05) and three vessels disease 31/194(18.45%) vs 5/234(4.42%)(p>0.05). Conclusions Higher CHA2DS2-Vasc score was related with higher levels of hsTnI in patients with AF. Moreover, patients with higher CHA2DS2-Vasc score were found to have more often underlying coronary artery disease and its severity was found to be related with the higher CHA2DS2-Vasc score. More studies are needed to investigate whether it would be useful to use CHA2DS2-Vasc score when evaluating the increased levels of hsTnI in patients with AF and if it could be included in an algorithm.

The Intersection of Dwarfism and Gender in Alisa’s Tale: Raising Awareness through Graphic Narrative

This note explores how the experiences of people with dwarfism are explored in the comic Alisa’s Tale (A short story) by Al Davison (2013). The aim is to discuss how the comic educates readers about the lived experiences of people with dwarfism. According to Foss, Gray and Whalen (2016) comics offer the unique potential for transforming our understanding of disability in truly profound ways. Unlike conventional forms of awareness raising, this note argues that the comic forces the reader to stare at the female dwarf body and witness their everyday experiences through multiple modes of representations. The note argues that using comics to raise awareness, encourages average-sized readers to question their ableist beliefs and reactions towards people with dwarfism. A Disability Studies lens was used in order to analyse the comic's visual and textual data. This note argues that comics are beneficial in raising awareness about dwarfism.

Review: Bloody Bay: Grassroots Policing in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco, by Darren A. Raspa

Review: <i>Bloody Bay: Grassroots Policing in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco</i>, by Darren A. Raspa

The Role of Witness as Evidence in Divorce Cases at the Banda Aceh Syar’iyah Court

This study examines the role of witnesses as evidence in a divorce case at the Banda Aceh Syari’iyah Court. This study aims to determine the legal basis of witnesses as evidence, the background of the witnesses who were submitted due to disputes or syiqaqand the position of female witnesses in divorce cases. This study uses empirical legal research or sociological law, which is a study whose object is legal phenomena using sociological theories. The legal phenomenon in question is the application of law at the Banda Aceh Syar’iyah Court, particularly regarding witness evidence in divorce cases. Data collection techniques were carried out by means of in-depth interviews with judges and literature studies related to the existence of witnesses and judges’ decisions as primary data related to witnesses as evidence. This study concludes that witnesses as evidence are based on the Qur’an and hadithand the applicable laws and regulations. Witnesses have existence as evidence used by judges as a consideration in deciding cases. In the case of a divorce caused by a dispute, the witness evidence comes from the close family background of the husband or wife. Close family who really know, see and hear the events that occur in their household. In civil procedural law for divorce cases at the Syar'iyah Court, women have the same and equal position as men in giving testimony. The testimony of close families and the sociological equality of women and men is a legal fact that must be appreciated to achieve justice for all parties.

When One Autoimmune Condition Predisposes You to Another!

Introduction: Lymphocytic hypophysitis (LYH) is an autoimmune condition in which pituitary gland is infiltrated by lymphocytes, plasma cells and macrophages. It is more common in pregnant and postpartum women, presenting with headache, visual field changes and one or more pituitary hormone impairment.Case Presentation: 32year-old female recently diagnosed with RA complicated by uveitis, presented to our facility with headache, shortness of breath, blurred vision and dysphagia. MRI head revealed a 1.9cm sellar mass with suprasellar extension displacing the optic chiasm. There was clear thickening of the pituitary stalk which raised suspicion for autoimmune hypophysitis. Exam in the ED revealed an anxious female wit hypertension, tachycardia and BMI 30. The rest of the physical exam was unremarkable. Her pituitary gonadal axis workup revealed panhypopituitarism with TSH 0.01uIU/ml, FSH <0.3Miu/ml, LH <0.3mIU/ml, ACTH <5pg/ml, IGF-1 31ng/ml and prolactin 14.4ng/ml. She was started on prednisone 50mg daily and on levothyroxine 150mcg daily. On day 2, she developed polyuria and the work up revealed a serum sodium of 146 meq/L, serum osmolality 315mOsm/kg, urine osmolality 281mOsm/kg and urine output 5.6L in 24hrs. The diagnosis of DI was made and she was started on desmopressin. On day 7, the serum sodium normalized and she did not require any other dose of desmopressin. On the day of discharge, a repeat MRI head was done which showed reduced enhancement of the pituitary which was reassuring.Discussion: LYH is a neuroendocrine disorder characterized by autoimmune inflammation of the pituitary gland with various degrees of pituitary dysfunction. Associated autoimmune diseases are seen in 18%– 50% of cases of AH. The most commonly-associated disease is autoimmune thyroid disease (15%–25%), while concurrent autoimmune conditions including RA are reported as well. Homogenous symmetrical enlargement of the pituitary gland, a thickened non deviated stalk, and a prompt, intense and homogenous enhancement of the mass after gadolinium contrast are the characteristic findings on MRI. Spontaneous resolution is the usual course and surgery is indicated only when the symptoms of sellar compression are serious and progressive.Conclusion: LYH is predominantly a disease of young females. We present this case in order to create awareness about the co-existence of LH with other autoimmune conditions and its usual course of regression with steroids.

Male and female witnesses of mobbing: Gender difference in experiencing consequences. A cross-sectional study in an italian sample

This study aims to analyze, from a descriptive point of view, the impact of the mobbing phenomenon in male and female self-declared witnesses and the consequences that affect it. To better understand the impact of the phenomenon, a comparison was made among witnesses and non-witnesses. The hypotheses were as follows: i. witnesses are predominantly male; ii. witnesses perceived a higher risk of mobbing than non-witnesses and, as a consequence, iii. witnesses experienced more health problems and work-related stress than non-witnesses. Participants were 574 individuals (43.4% witnesses), 254 (44.3%) male and 320 (55.7%) female. They completed a questionnaire about the risk of mobbing in their organization, the perceived psychological functioning and the perceived work-related stress. Findings showed that male and female witnesses indicated the presence of verbal, physical and psychological violence that characterized the relationship within the organization, the presence of interference in individuals’ private life and/or the presence of excessive control, isolation, remittance, and deskilling that affected their colleagues more often than female non-witnesses did. About perceived health and work-related stress, findings showed that male and female witnesses perceived a higher severity level of mental health problems than non-witnesses. Results from this research could be useful in improving prevention and intervention programmes that permit possible witnesses of mobbing to understand that consequences affect not only victims but also their perceived health, increasing perceived work-related stress.

“Gender Imbalance in Expert Testimony at U.S. Senate Hearings”: The Forum

Abstract How much gender diversity is there among experts in the United States? This study focuses on witnesses who testified before four US Senate committees: Agriculture; Commerce, Science &amp; Transportation; Foreign Relations; and Health, Education, Labor &amp; Pensions. Across the 9072 witnesses (2003–15), women comprised 23.7% of witnesses. In terms of panels, 49.8% were male-only, 5.8% were female-only, and 44.4% were mixed gender. Although the overall numbers remain significantly low proportionate to the female share of the US population, there was an incremental increase in the proportion of women testifying and of mixed gender panels. Non-governmental organizations had the highest share of female witnesses. The percentage of female witnesses does vary with which party controls the Senate, with the average female share higher under Democratic control. These findings raise questions for further study about what factors influence the selection of witnesses for US Senate hearings and whether a similar lack of diversity exists in other identity categories such as race and ethnicity. The effort could also be extended to other committees in the Senate, as well as to the US House.

ПРАВО НА ПРИСТУП СУДУ – РОДНА ПЕРСПЕКТИВА

Right of access to justice is a fundamental human right, guaranteed on both the international and national levels. Even though generally available to everyone, the right of access to justice is not equally exercised by men and women. On the one hand, women are less likely to bring a claim, including the application in front of international courts; on the other hand, women more frequently face challenges if they decide to protect their rights in the court of law. The author analyzes relevant international and national documents and the available case law, and tries to answer the following questions: what prevents women to exercise the right of access to justice at the time when the equality of men and women is an ideal pursued, supported and promoted both at the national and the international levels; what is the procedural position and treatment of women who bring the claim, and what is the position of female witnesses, judges and public prosecutors; what is the role of stereotypes and biases in court proceedings, and what are the mechanisms for overcoming these issues?

Some Current Publications

Some Current Publications Allison Y. Gibeily JANE BARKER See DELARIVIER MANLEY (Choi) APHRA BEHN Armstrong, Philip. "'Surprising, Rare, Unconceivable': Animal Wonders in the Exotic Tradition." Ariel, vol. 50, no. 4, 2019, pp. 1–24. Armstrong details the use of exotic animals in creating a discourse of wonder, arguing specifically that wonder is not only a "system of meaning, knowledge, or belief," but is more so a "structure of feeling" in which that same knowledge is "held in suspension" (3). Further, he distinguishes between the immediate response of wonder when one encounters a "marvel" and the use of that response to commodify wonderful objects and enlist them in an imperialist, capitalist project. Taking interest in bestiary tales and tracing their presence from classical philosophy to early Christian theology and eventually fifteenth- and sixteenth-century travel narratives, Armstrong then turns to an analysis of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko. Seeing Behn's menagerie of exotic animals as "a glossy prospectus that invites further investment in plantation agriculture" and all the horrors that come with it, Armstrong's article closes by tracing these same methods in twentieth and twenty-first century novels. Cooper, Karol. "Dice, Jesting, and the 'Pleasing Delusion' of Warlike Love in Aphra Behn's The Luckey Chance." In Games and War in Early Modern English Literature: From Shakespeare to Swift, edited by Holly Faith Nelson and James William Daems, 139-159. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Cooper's chapter traces the embedded critique of the cuckolding comedy genre and its detrimental social effects in Aphra Behn's play The Luckey Chance. Focusing specifically on the dice game toward the end of the play, [End Page 153] where Sir Cautious wagers a night with his wife Julia against his opponent Gayman, Cooper argues that Behn exposes the danger of likening sexual violence to "diverting games of social warfare" (143). In so doing, Behn proposes a darker, alternative sort of comedy in which emotional pain is present on the stage and borne by all characters involved. Purcell, Carey. From Aphra Behn to Fun Home: A Cultural History of Feminist Theater. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. Purcell examines the roles that women have played both on and off the stage in her chronological history of feminist theater. Inquiring first and foremost as to how we define feminist theater – whether it is productions by women, about women, or even male-authored works restaged with a feminist bent – Purcell shifts her focus in her second chapter to understand how women writers like Aphra Behn and Susanna Centlivre capitalized on new laws allowing women to perform on stage to challenge societal expectations during the Restoration. As she argues, these "female wits" complicated the assumed, gendered role of unmarried women, widows, and divorcees. Spencer, Jane. "Behn's Beasts: Aesop's Fables and Surinam's Wildlife in Oroonoko." In Reading Literary Animals, edited by Karen L. Edwards, Derek Ryan, and Jane Spencer, 46-65. New York: Routledge, 2020. Given that Behn wrote captions for a 1687 revised edition of Francis Barlow's Aesop's Fables shortly before publishing Oroonoko in 1688, Spencer outlines how the genre of the fable influenced Behn's descriptions of animals in Surinam. Specifically, by depicting the seventeenth century as a time when "natural history… has not completely eschewed the marvelous" (48), Spencer reimagines the titular character's encounters with animals to be just as much politically charged metaphor as they are scientific description or didactic fable. See also POLITICS & WAR (Hudson); WOMEN WRITERS (Min) ROBERT BOYLE See SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (Remien) JOHN CARLETON See MARY CARLETON (Lucenko) MARY CARLETON Lucenko, Kristina. "'Meerly My Own Free Agent': Liberty and Civility in The Case of Madam Mary Carleton." Early Modern Women 14, no. 1 (2019): 50–74. Lucenko reconsiders Mary Carleton's 1663 pamphlet The Case of Madam Mary Carleton in light of emerging ideas of selfhood and contract from theorists like Hobbes and Locke. As she suggests, Carleton counters her husband John's accusations of bigamy and impersonation by assuming three different "subject positions" in her pamphlet: "Political Carleton," who focuses on mutual obligations of ruler and subject, "Cavalier Carleton," who appeals to courtly culture while simultaneously critiquing it, and "Civil Carleton," who demonstrates a keen understanding of British...

New Perspectives on Delarivier Manley and Eighteenth-Century Literature: Power, Sex, and Text ed. by Aleksondra Hultquist and Elizabeth J. Mathews

Reviewed by: New Perspectives on Delarivier Manley and Eighteenth-Century Literature: Power, Sex, and Text ed. by Aleksondra Hultquist and Elizabeth J. Mathews Carole Sargent New Perspectives on Delarivier Manley and Eighteenth-Century Literature: Power, Sex, and Text, ed. Aleksondra Hultquist and Elizabeth J. Mathews. New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xvii + 242. $150; $57.95 (e-book). If Delarivier Manley came back today she might favor border walls or cheer for Brexit. What rescues her from dislikeability is a wit more worthy of Elaine May than Theresa May, and memorable political firepower that helped bring down a government. With this irascibility in mind I approach this collected volume, one that aspires to fresh perspectives yet remains polite, only occasionally manifesting Manley's mixture of shocking libel, alarming politics, and unexpected laughs. In "The Adventures of Rivella as Political Secret History," Rachel Carnell, one of Manley's most rigorous scholars, explains why Manley's autobiography is not a postmodern mashup, but a political secret history in code, much like its explosive predecessor The New Atalantis (hereafter TNA), and also a successful dunning letter to Lord Harley. Reading Rivella in its proper political context gives us the real Manley, as "we begin to understand the counter-narrative of Queen Anne's reign, told through the voice of a Tory blackmailer" (Manley), "rather than a Whig one" (Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough). "The Politics of Servitude: The Husband's Resentment. In Two Examples in Delarivier Manley's The Power of Love," presents Manley torn between two patrons, George I and the Jacobite lady to whom she dedicates The Power of Love. Earla Wilputte sees this as being "emotionally involved with one … but legally bound to another," reflecting a national "adulterous attraction" for the Stuart Pretender. However, where Wilputte's Manley is "not explicitly endorsing Jacobitism" and "probably not really pining for the Stuart Pretender," I would counter that where there's smoke there's fire. Wilputte's chapter adds essential content from an understudied work to continue scholarly debate about Manley's politics. [End Page 224] In "Vengeance, Vows, and 'Heroick Vertue': Reforming the Revenger in Delarivier Manley's Almyna: or, The Arabian Vow," Misty Krueger astutely offers revenge as "a lynchpin in Manley's turn from heroic tragedy to civic drama." She compares "Almyna" to "The Royal Mischief" from a decade earlier, recasting the strong female heroine as one who "must not instigate revenge," but instead become, in Dennis's words, "the preserver of nations." Krueger concludes that Manley "shows the potential for language to combat men's destructive tendencies and for women to champion civil rights." While I might quarrel with the last two words, since my Manley was more about royalist order than civil freedoms, I agree that a "masculine female heroic" genre captures her style. "'Through the Black Sea and the Country of Colchis': A Geocentric Approach to Delarivier Manley's The Royal Mischief" goes where Manley scholarship should have eighty years ago, to "explicitly Islamicate themes" of women playwrights in the late seventeenth century. Focusing on the well-known triumvirate of "Female Wits," Bernadette Andrea locates elements of a "counter-orientalist stance" in Manley's otherwise predictably fashionable orientalist imagination. Manley is not writing about Turkey or Persia in The Royal Mischief, Andrea argues, but "Colchis and Abcas in the Caucasus region bordering the Black Sea," Islamic sites of the era, and the literary goal of Jason, his Argonauts, and Medea. We do not get to sex until part 2, and Manley would never have made us wait! In chapter 5: "Interrupting Pleasure: Ideology and Affect in The New Atalantis," Erin M. Keating finds key TNA incidents in line with tropes from late-seventeenth-century pathetic tragedy. The notorious story of Charlot and the Duke, one of Manley's most exploitatively sexual, shows how Restoration tragedy could have predicted that "desire … is ultimately destructive of its object." Dismissing important scholarly readings of Elonora as allegorical, Keating treats her as a literary character, an approach I contend the text itself resists. Her observation that Elonora is the only distressed woman to retain her virginity, however, marks a core contribution for future work. Jennifer Frangos enlists twenty-first-century asexuality studies...