Group Of Human Beings Research Articles

Combatting Amnesia: <i>Weyward Macbeth</i>

For those interested in adaptations, appropriations and localisations of Shakespeare, Weyward Macbeth is a collection of essays providing a fascinating, interdisciplinary record of Macbeth's many performances and appropriations in American theatre as well as in American literary, political and social history. A volume in the Signs of Race series which aims make us more conscious, and more critical, readers of the signs that have separated, and still separate, one group of human beings from another (Series Editor's Preface), Weyward Macbeth traces how race intersects with Macbeth. The book's editors construct a history of the play in theatre, film, music, poetry, cartoons and politics which narrates how race and racism haunt the performance of Macbeth. The book is far from monolithic and didactic, however, developing its theme from multiple standpoints and in relation to different periods.

“Prisoners of the Postwar”: Expellees, Displaced Persons, and Jews in Austria after World War II

In the aftermath of World War II, Austria once again achieved notoriety as a “prison of peoples.” In 1951, theOst-West Kurier, a newspaper in Essen, decried the degrading mistreatment of Austria's so-called “prisoners of the postwar.” Men, women, and children were wasting away in former concentration camps and were denied citizenship rights, the right to work or to travel freely, and basic social protections, the newspaper reported. These “prisoners” were not, however, former Jewish concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war (POWs), or displaced persons (DPs). They were German expellees from Eastern Europe—the very Germans on whose behalf the Nazi war for Lebensraum had allegedly been fought. “In the entire Western world, there is today no group of human beings who has been sentenced to live with so few rights as the so-called Volksdeutsche in Austria,” the newspaper's editors proclaimed:300,000 people, whose homes and property have been torn from them through the expulsions, all too often by their closest neighbors, endured a hard journey to Austria, where they believed upon arrival that it could be something like a greater Heimat for them. Because only three decades ago, they too were Austrians.

Acercamiento a través de un análisis espacial al poblamiento de la Edad del Bronce Final y la Edad del Hierro en el sector sudoccidental de la Submeseta Norte

El análisis espacial se ha confirmado en las últimas décadas como unametodología muy válida para avanzar en el conocimiento de las formas de poblamiento y la relación de los grupos humanos con el paisaje circundante. En este trabajo se muestran las bases de una investigación que aborda esta cuestión en los grupos humanos establecidos en el sector más sudoccidental de la Submeseta Norte durante las últimas etapas Protohistóricas. Se presenta un primer acercamiento que pretende confirmar la validez de la línea metodológica usada, ya que los datos de partida no permiten mayor profundidad por el momento. Se lleva a cabo la medición mediante un SIG de una serie de variables espaciales en su relación con los hábitats. Los resultados obtenidos son sometidos a análisis estadísticos multivariables, que nos llevan a la consecución de patrones de emplazamiento los cuales, puestos en relación con los datos cronológico-culturales conocidos, nos permiten vislumbrar marcas cronológico-culturales en el Paisaje.

Persons, Signs, Animals: A Peircean Account of Personhood

In this essay I describe two of the accounts that Peirce provides of personhood: the semiotic account, on which a person is a sequence of thought-signs, and the naturalistic account, on which a person is an animal. I then argue that these disparate accounts can be reconciled into a plausible view on which persons are numerically distinct entities that are nevertheless continuous with each other in an important way. This view would be agreeable to Peirce in some respects, as it is modeled on his theory of perception, incorporates his categories of Firstness, Second-ness and Thirdness, and is in harmony with his objective idealism. But it diverges from Peirce in one important respect, viz. its rejection of the idea that some groups of human beings count as persons.

Rádio e cidade: aproximações de mapas noturnos de tempos e espaços

What can city and radio have in common? Apparently nothing more objective than one being the place where the listeners of the other live, or the fact that cities are now considered the place where large groups of human beings with their peculiarities and specificities are concentrated and radio, as a massive medium, have become originated from the necessity of these men to know and to control their surroundings in increasing scale.

O Demoníaco no Evangelho de Marcos

O evangelho de Marcos menciona seres demoníacos em primeiro lugar como espíritos impuros e como demônios. O príncipe deles é referido por outros como Belzebu e por Jesus como Satanás. Foi preciso que o Espírito Santo fosse chamado de Santo para diferenciá-lo dos outros espíritos, coisa desnecessária no Antigo Testamento.

COMPARISON AND HISTORY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS: An Essay on Michael Cook's Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought1

ABSTRACTQur'an 3:104 speaks of “commanding right and forbidding wrong” as a constitutive feature of the Muslim community. Michael Cook's careful and comprehensive study provides a wealth of information about the ways Muslims in various contexts have understood this notion. Cook also makes a number of comparative observations, and suggests that “commanding” appears to be a uniquely Muslim practice. Scholars of religious ethics should read Cook's study with great appreciation. They will also have a number of questions about his comparative comments. In this article, I suggest that scholars of comparative ethics should think less about the “uniqueness” of the materials examined by Cook, and more about the ways groups of human beings discipline their members, thereby constituting and maintaining themselves as communities of virtue.

Civic Commitment, Political Culture and the Estonian Inter-War Generation

The purpose of this article is to investigate to what extent civic commitment and the political culture from the Estonian first republic survived communism at an individual level. Have representatives of the Estonian inter-war generation who endured Soviet occupation been able to remain civically committed even though they were disconnected from democratic institutions for a major part of their lives? Sometimes labelled “republican,” this generation matured into early adulthood during an unusually formative period in Estonian history, when the new democratic state was taking shape in between the two world wars. Hence, it fulfils the criteria of a political generation as “a group of human beings who have undergone the same basic historical experiences during their formative years.” The analysis contributes to two different, although in this context interrelated, discussions. The first addresses the roots of Estonia's successful post-communist experiences, the second the extent to which early socialization endures dramatic institutional shifts.

ERIC D. WEITZ. A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2003. Pp. 360. $29.95

Over the past few years, the comparative and transnational study of genocide, until a decade ago the province of a small group of social scientists, has attracted tremendous attention and a notable body of scholarly work. Eric D. Weitz's compelling book, published in 2003, was one of the first historical studies on the subject. While it faced some sharp criticism in the first round of reviews, mostly from specialists, it has withstood the test of time and has become a point of reference for the ongoing effort to explain genocide, the reality of the murder or entire groups of human beings and the theories or concepts informing its study, in all its ramifications. The book's argument, and its set-up, are probably too complex in order to make it truly popular, but it is written lucidly and elegantly, which makes it a pleasure to teach and to debate. The title raises wrong expectations. Weitz focuses on exemplary cases—Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union, the Red Khmer in Cambodia, and the Serbian/Yugoslav regime of Slobodan Milosevic—in order to derive general conclusions about genocide. The Armenian and the Rwandan cases are discussed briefly in the introduction and conclusion, but I am not the only one to wonder whether it is a lack of knowledge, which Weitz acknowledges with regard to Rwanda, that keeps them at the margins. A certain artifice of selection is the price to be paid for stringent comparison. The question is whether or not this selection is tautological in the sense that it confirms, or unduly limits, the author's thesis.

The Evolving International Human Rights System

Few, if any, branches of international law have undergone such dramatic growth and evolution as international human rights in the one hundred years since the founding of the American Society of International Law. This branch of international law did not really come into its own until after World War II. Before then, what today we would broadly characterize as human rights law consisted of diffuse or unrelated legal principles and institutional arrangements that were in one way or another designed to protect certain categories or groups of human beings. Included in this mix prior to World War I were state responsibility for injuries to aliens, international humanitarian law (as we know it today), the protection of minorities, and humanitarian intervention.

Exploring Critical Dialogue in the Boardroom: Getting Inside the Empirical Black Box of Board Dynamics

Research on boards of directors is dominated by a largely context free methodological tradition that seeks to relate various structural and demographic characteristics of boards to firm performance. An alternative research agenda stresses the centrality of context and the necessity of gaining access to the real world of board processes, dynamics and interactions. We contribute to the latter here through the perceptual lens of the non-executive director or NED (~87 respondents from the FTSE-500, UK). Our point of departure is the apparently trivial insight that boards are groups of human beings who meet regularly on the basis of fulfilling a common purpose and that the quality of critically constructive dialogue among board members is an important component of board dynamics and probably a key antecedent of board meeting efficiency and effectiveness. The main purpose here is to gain some insight into what goes on inside the black box by exploring the association between the quality of such dialogue in board meetings and board leadership. We complement this processual, relational dynamics and social constructionist focus by incorporating three other variables in the exploratory analysis that are theorised to be associated with board effectiveness: (i) NED Human Capital based on the selection procedures in use; (ii) NED Role Clarity (role; power; responsibility); and (iii) Access to Information.

Under Darwin’s Cosh? Neo-Aristotelian Thinking in Environmental Ethics

As a first shot, one might say that environmental ethics is concerned distinctively with the moral relations that exist between, on the one hand, human beings and, on the other, the non-human natural environment. But this really is only a first shot. For example, one might be inclined to think that at least some components of the non-human natural environment (non-human animals, plants, species, forests, rivers, ecosystems, or whatever) have independent moral status, that is, are morally considerable in their own right, rather than being of moral interest only to the extent that they contribute to human well-being. If so, then one might be moved to claim that ethical matters involving the environment are best cashed out in terms of the dutes and responsibilities that human beings have to such components. If, however, one is inclined to deny independent moral status to the non-human natural environment or to any of its components, then one might be moved to claim that the ethical matters in question are exhaustively delineated by those moral relations existing between individual human beings, or between groups of human beings, in which the non-human natural environment figures. One key task for the environmental ethicist is to sort out which, if either, of these perspectives is the right one to adopt—as a general position or within particular contexts. I guess I don’t need to tell you that things get pretty complicated pretty quickly.

Cultures as a Causative of Mental Disorder

A review of previous papers makes it evident that mental disorder is considered to be the product of multiple factors. The present paper is in harmony with this orientation, and its title, which was assigned to us, should not be interpreted as implying ideas of mono-causal relationship. The discussion of our topic will be necessarily limited and selective, since talking about culture in its global sense touches on virtually all aspects of human behavior. Some areas such as family relationships and social change have been discussed earlier. Others such as cultural history and philosophy are too vast to be treated adequately in one chapter. We shall attempt, therefore, to present some points from salient literature, and to give impressions derived from several years of research dealing with socio-cultural factors and mental disorder.

The Shifting Foundations of Modern Nation-States

The Shifting Foundations of Modern Nation-States, Sima Godfrey and Frank Unger, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, pp. xi, 164.The collapse of communism, the end of the cold war, and the seeming inevitability of what is euphemistically termed globalization have shifted the parameters of political discourse away from the traditional issues of economics and class or, as Harold Lasswell succinctly put it almost seven decades ago, who gets what, when, how. The new discourse focuses instead on the politics of identity and, whether one likes it or not, nationalism still occupies a very prominent place among the identities cherished by various groups of human beings. Thus the last fifteen years have seen a proliferation of books, articles, and conference papers devoted to the subject of nationalism, in Canada and elsewhere.

Under Darwin's Cosh? Neo-Aristotelian Thinking in Environmental Ethics

As a first shot, one might say that environmental ethics is concerned distinctively with the moral relations that exist between, on the one hand, human beings and, on the other, the non-human natural environment. But this really is only a first shot. For example, one might be inclined to think that at least some components of the non-human natural environment (non-human animals, plants, species, forests, rivers, ecosystems, or whatever) have independent moral status, that is, are morally considerable in their own right, rather than being of moral interest only to the extent that they contribute to human well-being. If so, then one might be moved to claim that ethical matters involving the environment are best cashed out in terms of the dutes and responsibilities that human beings have to such components. If, however, one is inclined to deny independent moral status to the non-human natural environment or to any of its components, then one might be moved to claim that the ethical matters in question are exhaustively delineated by those moral relations existing between individual human beings, or between groups of human beings, in which the non-human natural environment figures. One key task for the environmental ethicist is to sort out which, if either, of these perspectives is the right one to adopt—as a general position or within particular contexts. I guess I don't need to tell you that things get pretty complicated pretty quickly.

Podmiotowość człowieka w okresie prenatalnym

The article rejects various attempts to negate the subjectivity of human embryo, formulated among others in the Polish debate entitled “Mother cells - life for a life?” and organized by the Ministry of Scientific Research and Information Technology in 2003 and 2004. The author thinks that the proposal to treat a human embryo as a deceased donor of organs is wrong both in the field of embryology and philosophical anthropology. It is also wrong to question the subjectivity of human embryo using various criteria of growth (developed nervous system, brain, consciousness, participation in the life of society, and looking after one's own interests). These criteria do not define humanity but describe a human being in various phases of expressions of his/her human nature. That is why it is not acceptable to make the right to life conditional on the stage and degree of the actualization of humanity. Furthermore, one cannot justify the deprivation of the subjectivity of human embryos because of medical progress and the so-called good of humankind. The acceleration of progress cannot be done at the cost of the life of some group of human beings.

World Management Lessons from India

World Management Lessons from India

Teuchters, Newfies and Hillbillies: Comparing Comic Stereotypes In Scotland, Newfoundland and Appalachia

If we seriously want to see ourselves as others see us, then we must come to terms with the role that comic stereotypes play in perpetuat ing preconceptions and prejudices. Though Aristotle in The Poetics defined the Comic as a species of the Ugly lacking the power to harm, much of the comic abuse various groups of human beings gleefully heap upon despised others stems from hurtful and hateful desires to denigrate and belittle. Pursuing the deeper meanings of these archetypal comic themes and images carries us across disciplinary and conceptual boundaries, taking us from the superficially ridiculous to the sublimated dialectic of derision and terror underlying comic stereotyping wherever it is found. Vicious xenophobic humour is truly no laughing matter.

An Increased Risk of Osteoporosis during Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Osteoporosis is characterized by decreased bone mineral density and mechanistic imbalances of bone tissue that may result in reduced skeletal strength and an enhanced susceptibility to fractures. Osteoporosis in its most common form affects the elderly (both sexes) and all racial groups of human beings. Multiple environmental risk factors like acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are believed to be one of the causes of osteoporosis. Recently a high incidence of osteoporosis has been observed in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals. The etiology of this occurrence in HIV infections is controversial. This problem seems to be more frequent in patients receiving potent antiretroviral therapy. In AIDS, the main suggested risk factors for the development of osteoporosis are use of protease inhibitors, longer duration of HIV infection, lower body weight before antiretroviral therapy, high viral load. Variations in serum parameters like osteocalcin, c-telopeptide, levels of elements like Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, concentration of vitamin-D metabolites, lactate levels, bicarbonate concentrations, amount of alkaline phosphatase are demonstrated in the course of development of osteoporosis. OPG/RANKL/RANK system is final mediator of bone remodeling. Bone mineral density (BMD) test is of added value to assess the risk of osteoporosis in patients infected with AIDS. The biochemical markers also aid in this assessment. Clinical management mostly follows the lines of treatment of osteoporosis and osteopenia.

Roc-La-Tour I, le site des Esprits: L’art du Magdalénien VI à Monthermé (Ardennes)

For 100 or 200 years during the late Bölling this site in the Ardenne, with its fine outlook, was the summer camp for a small group (10–15 persons) from the Paris Basin. No bone has been preserved (acid soil). Each of the four levels corresponds to at least five to 10 visits. The visitors were attracted to the site by the viewpoint, the dry ground and the presence of ochre and schist. Thousands of plaques and plaquettes were used and broken up before and after engraving. There are more engraved pieces than burins and borers: the visitors must have engraved every day. The engravings include five palimpsests, 32 tangled groups of incisions (« tangles ») and 75 fragmentary images of animals and human beings, with the same menagerie as in the South-West of France; a large majority of the figurative subjects are shown only partially, or merely roughly sketched; there are several human beings and one vulva. The 410 abstract signs can be classified into 14 categories, mostly different from those found in the South-West, and there are 215 groups of parallel lines. These engraved, smoothed or shaped plaquettes, together with 123 deposits of ochre, all contrast with the lack of similar finds on sites in the Paris Basin which are, however, 10 times richer as far as tools are concerned. There was an evolutionary course in the engravings (figures and signs): inception, development, acme and the start of a decline. This site complements those in the Paris Basin and the Ardenne left by the same persons; it is an integral, inseparable part of the remains of the same group of human beings.