Independent Scholar Research Articles

Why Latinx?

Editorial| April 01 2021 Why Latinx? Charlene Villaseñor Black, Charlene Villaseñor Black Charlene Villaseñor Black is professor of art history and Chicana/o studies at University of California, Los Angeles. She authored Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: Art and Gender in the Spanish Empire (Princeton University Press, 2006), edited Tradition and Transformation: Chicana/o Art from the 1970s through the 1990s (University of Washington Press, 2015), and coedited Renaissance Futurities: Science, Art, Invention (University of California Press, 2019), Knowledge for Justice: An Ethnic Studies Reader (UCLA, 2019), The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlán (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2020) and Autobiography without Apology: The Personal Essay in Latino Studies (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2020). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Emily A. Engel Emily A. Engel Emily Engel is an independent scholar based in Southern California. Engel authored Pictured Politics: Visualizing Colonial History in South American Portrait Collections (University of Texas Press, 2020), edited A Companion to Early Modern Lima (Brill, 2019) and coedited Manuscript Cultures of Colonial Mexico and Peru: New Questions and Approaches (Getty Publications, 2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (2021) 3 (2): 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2021.3.2.5 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Charlene Villaseñor Black, Emily A. Engel; Why Latinx?. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1 April 2021; 3 (2): 5–10. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2021.3.2.5 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentLatin American and Latinx Visual Culture Search In this editorial commentary, we consider the use of Latinx in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture and argue for its relevance and importance, while at the same time recognizing the term’s limitations, variability, and potential for change. In our very first issue of LALVC, we upheld the use of x instead of o or a/o or @ in our title as a proclamation of inclusiveness. How has our thinking about the x evolved since then? This short reflection surveys and ponders existing commentary on the topic, as we encourage additional discussion and debate. Because of our role as journal editors and due to our training in art history, we’re particularly interested in the use of the term in the realms of scholarly publishing and visual culture studies. Latinx is an inclusive, transformational term that semantically opens creative spaces for the decolonial manipulation of materials, forms, and ideas by... You do not currently have access to this content.

Simon McBurney, Theatrical Soundscapes, and Postdigital Communities

In this article, Angela Butler explores postdigital community through an analysis of Complicité’s The Encounter. All facets of personal and civic life are permeated by the digital to such a degree that we are living through a period termed ‘the postdigital’. Postdigital communities are commonly formed, and nearly always sustained, through online networks. Drawing on Jill Dolan’s utopian performative and Victor Turner’s communitas, the article argues that rather than acting as an ancillary commentary platform, postdigital communities are now a principal component of certain theatrical experiences. With increasingly isolated lives, there is an evident appeal to work that taps into the joy of being alone, together. Angela Butler is an independent scholar based in Dublin who works in the technology sector. Cultural transformation is the central pillar of her ongoing research. With an eye to new and future technologies, her work is concerned with posthumanism, identities in transformation, and affective encounters.

Margaret Harkness: Writing Social Engagement, 1880-1921, edited by Flore Janssen and Lisa C. Robertson

Reviewed by: Margaret Harkness: Writing social engagement, 1880–1921 ed. by Flore Janssen and Lisa C. Robertson Deirdre d'Albertis (bio) Margaret Harkness: Writing social engagement, 1880–1921, edited by Flore Janssen and Lisa C. Robertson; pp. xxi + 237. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019, $120.00, £80.00. Margaret Elise Harkness, known to late-nineteenth-century readers of her reviews, essays, travel writing, and novels as John Law, may well be the most interesting yet frustratingly obscure of women writers to be rediscovered by feminist and materialist literary historians of the twentieth century. Once little more than a footnote in studies dedicated to her better-known cousin Beatrice Potter Webb or to histories of socialist and labor politics, Harkness came to critical notice in the 1990s and has continued to stimulate original research, interpretation, and speculation ever since. With the publication of Margaret Harkness: Writing social engagement, 1880–1921, editors Flore Janssen and Lisa C. Robertson offer a new perspective on this perplexingly elusive figure. Robertson and Janssen do a great service in curating this collection, which was stimulated by a 2014 British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) and Birkbeck College symposium. Equally welcome and transformative for Harkness scholarship is the online repository maintained by Janssen and Robertson, The Harkives, an "open-access digital archive of sources by and about the author, activist and traveler Margaret Harkness" ("About the Harkives," The Harkives [Wordpress] par. 1). This worthy volume assembles most if not all of the scholars who have provided substantial groundwork for understanding Harkness's life and work. Those not included are generously referenced: early Harkness biographer Irene Snatt, for instance, is given full credit for her pioneering discoveries. Who was Margaret Harkness? Unlike the New Woman protagonists of George Gissing and others with whom she has so often been compared, Harkness, who lived from 1854 to 1923, is not easily resolved into critical narratives based upon conceptions of [End Page 119] proto-feminist subjectivity integral to the fiction of Charlotte Brontë or George Eliot earlier in the century. An air of depersonalization and clinical objectivity characterizes much of her writing. A Reader like Amy Levy, Olive Schreiner, and Eleanor Marx, Harkness began her professional life as a writer in the British Library. She also trained as a nurse at Westminster Hospital and then as a dispenser at Guy's Hospital before becoming what we might today term an independent scholar. Dwelling in the Katharine Buildings in Aldgate as a radical journalist and political activist, Harkness was a renegade in terms of her own class identity. She was also a gender radical, as novels such as Captain Lobe: A Story of the Salvation Army (1889) make evident, although relatively little attention to non-binary identities emerges in these essays. Researchers of women's writing and the literature of urban exploration have tended to converge on the version of Harkness who published naturalistic novels of working class life in the late 1880s and 90s. Important scholars of London's East End and urban history who first drew attention to Harkness include Ellen Ross and Seth Koven as well as Deborah Nord, Sally Ledger, and Eileen Sypher. Ruth Livesey and Lynne Hapgood are both represented in the present volume, as is David Glover, all of whom have directed much-needed critical attention to Harkness as urban chronicler. From A City Girl: A Realistic Story (1887) through Out of Work (1888) and In Darkest London (1891) to George Eastmont: Wanderer (1905), Harkness returned time and again to class conflict and to the impoverished lives of urban dwellers. Her sensibility could at times verge on the phantasmagoric, even as she embraced the naturalism of her continental counterpart Émile Zola. Bearing witness to the Matchwomen's Strike of 1888 and the Dockworkers' Strike of 1889, Harkness eschewed conventional plots, protagonists, and narration in her struggle to capture history in the making. Less familiar, and therefore most welcome to see addressed in the collection, is the Margaret Harkness who lived outside of England for years at a time, residing as a working journalist in Australia before traveling to and writing about India toward the end of her life. This late writing deserves attention, as it expands...

My Intersecting Quests as a Disabled Independent Scholar

This colloquy, by graduate-student-led collective Project Spectrum, attempts to map out existing discussions around inclusion and equity in music academia, with a specific focus on identifying and analyzing the structures in academia that work against minoritized and historically excluded scholars. 
 Tekla Babyak asks us to re-imagine what is on the other side of the pipeline. In her colloquy contribution, she shares her advocacy experience in fighting for both independent scholars’ and disabled scholars’ seat at the proverbial table. She imagines an academic discipline that would readily accept, acknowledge, and uplift independent scholars—instead of considering them half- or failed scholars for their lack of institutional affiliation. And she imagines an academic discipline that would readily include disabled scholars, not for their exceptionality in achieving scholarship, but for their ability to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive intellectual milieu. She critiques the ableism endemic to the academic pipeline, an ableism that veils the physical and also emotional, mental, and spiritual obstructions in our discipline’s path to so-called success.

Fool’s Gold: Fakes, Frauds, and Fallacies in Philippine History by Bob Couttie

Reviewed by: Fool’s Gold: Fakes, Frauds, and Fallacies in Philippine History by Bob Couttie Francisco Jayme Paolo A. Guiang BOB COUTTIE Fool’s Gold: Fakes, Frauds, and Fallacies in Philippine History. Vol. 1. Quezon City: Central Books, 2020. 213 pages. Fool’s Gold: Fakes, Frauds, and Fallacies in Philippine History, volume 1, is an interesting work that unravels historical misconceptions that are commonly believed to be true. Bob Couttie, the book’s author, is an independent scholar who completed courses in forensic science at the University of Strathclyde; forensic psychology at The Open University in Milton Keynes, England; forensic science and criminal justice at the University of Leicester; military ethics at the University of New South Wales Canberra; and antiquities trafficking and art crime at the University of Glasgow. His interest in Philippine history is evident in articles in his blogsite, Bob’s Histories and Mysteries. Most noteworthy is Couttie’s book Hang the Dogs: The True Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre (New Day, 2004), a scholarly work that introduces provocative ideas about the history of the Balangiga incident during the Philippine–American War. Fool’s Gold is printed and published by Central Books, although it can also be ordered online through a dedicated Facebook page and the author’s blogsite. Couttie offers his readers a very timely work in light of the recent surge in fake news, disinformation, and cases of negative historical revisionism that are used to advance certain political interests. The author recognizes this premise early in the book: “Falsehood has been weaponised as never before and democracy and freedom and the welfare and future of everything we know and care for is under threat. It is a war on truth” (xi). A distinct feature of Couttie’s work lies in its primary aim, which is to promote reasoned argument and critical thinking by revisiting “a range of popular, often outdated, misconceptions about Philippine history” (xi). Hence, Fool’s Gold is a scholarly work that does not only rectify erroneous or misleading information but also provokes readers to have a nuanced appreciation of [End Page 319] history. In line with this idea, the author explains that “If we apply that critical thinking skill to everything we hear, read or watch then we will be better armed against the falsehoods that seek to influence us and persuade us to be complicit in our own imprisonment and oppression” (xi). To expose “fakes, frauds, and fallacies” present in existing historical knowledge, Couttie thematically divides the book into four sections that deal with various topics across Philippine history. His bias toward the history of the Philippine–American War is evident in the first section, “War Stories,” which includes seven chapters. Couttie revisits and clarifies fascinating historical facts, such as the identity of Lewis M. Johnson, the “Colonel of Artillery” who served as the lone American signatory in the Philippine Declaration of Independence (3–29), and the contradicting statistics on the supposed death toll in Samar during the Philippine–American War (67–75). The succeeding five chapters are lumped under a section titled “Myths and Legends,” in which the author interrogates timeless debates in Philippine history. These discussions include Renato Constantino’s assessment of José Rizal as an American-sponsored hero (144–70), the story of Princess Urduja and its place in Philippine lore (111–33), and even Pres. Ferdinand Marcos’s ambitious anti-typhoon rocket program (134–42). Couttie probes into manufactured historical truths in the three chapters that comprise the third section, “Fakers All.” Most intriguing in this section is the author’s examination of the Tallano wealth, which Marcos purportedly acquired prior to his political heyday. The last section, aptly titled “And Finally,” is composed of a single chapter, “Kill the Chocolate Biscuit” (205–9), which deals with the controversy of the Hispanic chocolate biscuit brand Filipinos. Indeed, Couttie leads his readers into a dense narrative that is composed of multiple layers of inquiries that identify historical falsehoods and misconceptions. The discussions are thoroughly pursued through an examination of essential literature and relevant primary documents. Ending Fool’s Gold with a section on the history of chocolate as beverage and delicacy during the Spanish colonial period is...

Amy Hildreth Chen. Placing Papers: The American Literary Archives Market. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020. 192p. Paper, $33.95 (ISBN 978-1-62534-485-4).

Published as part of the University of Massachusetts Press series on Studies in Print Culture and History of the Book, Placing Papers: The American Literary Archives Market is a well-written and fascinating history of how various stakeholders—and their differing motivations—shaped the literary archives trade in the United States of America. Amy Hildreth Chen, who holds a PhD in English from Emory University, previously was an academic librarian at the University of Iowa and now is an independent scholar. She traces the largely overlooked history of the trade in literary papers from its post-World War II origins through to the mid-2010s. The book comprises an introduction, conclusion, and six chapters. After a brief first chapter on the various values implicated in archives (financial, scholarly, and public), Placing Papers examines the literary archives market from the perspective of several key stakeholder groups: authors and their families (chapter 2), agents and dealers (chapter 3), directors and curators (chapter 4), archivists and digital archivists (chapter 5), and, finally, scholars and members of the public (chapter 6).

Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia by Cai Yunci

Reviewed by: Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia by Cai Yunci Janet Pillai Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia. by CAI YUNCI. New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. 244pp. ISBN 9780429053627. This monograph stands out for its contribution to expanding the literature on indigenous museology from a Southeast-Asian perspective. In this study the author surfaces critical conversations on museology, cultural heritage and the mobilization of UNESCO's culture for development rhetoric through an ethnographic study of four community-based cultural villages in east and peninsular Malaysia. The four 'living museums' are touted as community-based cultural heritage projects intended to conserve and sustain living traditions and customs and contribute to the socio-economic well-being of indigenous groups. Using grounded case studies Cai Yunci exposes contradictory realities—how these museums represent a post-colonial reconfiguration of the state's relationship with indigenous minorities and are in fact sites of negotiation and contestation where the dynamics of representation, self-determinism, identity and sustainability are complicated by the differing interests and motivations of several stakeholders (communities, sponsors, mediators/brokers, curators, landowners, audiences) involved in setting up, managing and operating the museums. Readers are persuaded to rethink the politics of representation and of museology by the methodical approach taken by the author. The monograph opens with a well referenced and up-to-date literature review on the changing notions of concepts such as culture, cultural heritage, culture for development, indigeneity and museology. The author strongly suggests the need to adopt critical museology, an approach which recognizes that cultural institutions such as museums are subject to specific geographies and histories which cannot be segregated from wider social, political and economic relations. Cai devotes a chapter to uncover the early historical conceptualization and classification of indigeneity in Malaysia and how it has been influenced by colonial thought and politics, in the form of race discourse, ethnography and censuses, evolutionary principles, cultural protectionism and [End Page 234] integration policies. Cai also presents newer counter developments in indigenous political activism and shared consciousness that have arisen as a response to issues of marginalization and status reclassification, encroachment of customary land and resources, environmentalism and the rise of transnational indigenous rights movements. Following the examination of the historical conception of indigeneity at the macro level is an examination of how indigeneity is conceptualized, curated and consumed at the micro level through cultural museums. The case studies provide well-researched information on the founding, development and organization of the four cultural villages and reveal differing perspectives held by contesting stakeholders on the impact and effect of these cultural projects. In particular the case studies highlight the concepts of cultural brokerage and cultural enterprise and commodification that characterize the Malaysian projects. The case studies demonstrate how indigenous cultural practice has been displaced from its place of origin; how beneficiary groups have been reduced to a culture of dependency on the brokers and museums; how self-determinism is denied due to lack of trust; and how the staging of cultural heritage has resulted in the modification, reinvention or reframing of cultural attributes. By contextualizing how the dynamics and notions of indigeneity at the macro level affect indigenous representation at a micro level, the author exposes the complexities that need to be considered in museology and the importance of maintaining a critical and reflexive attitude towards toward place, time, and constituencies. Southeast Asian museums need to reconsider the rights and obligation of the community in matters of curation, operation, and management, to recognize community agency and authority on what they deem appropriate, sensitive, and accurate, as well as acknowledge that indigenous cultures are not merely rooted in locality but are also subject to the pressures of modernization and globalization. Janet Pillai Independent Scholar and Resource Person Copyright © 2021 Malaysian Branch of The Royal Asiatic Society

Teams. <www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/free>

Teams. <www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/free> Clarissa C. Eagle In a blog post (Nov. 2016), Microsoft 365 Vice-President Kirk Koenigsbauer introduces Microsoft Teams as a "new chat-based workspace" that "brings together people, conversations, and content […] so they can easily collaborate to achieve more." This review focuses on how three key elements in Koenigsbauer's description of Teams—conversation, content, and collaboration—play out in a language teaching context. First, conversation: Teams is built around "teams," or groups of people with whom a user regularly communicates. For example, I have four teams: my school, my department, my co-teachers, and my students. Within these teams, I can start video calls, share files, and chat. Team chats are similar to Facebook groups, both being shared spaces where people can post and respond and react (thumbs-up, heart, etc.) to each other. For one-on-one or smaller group communication, Teams has the option of private messages, which are similar to Facebook messages or emails. Next, moving on to content: each team has a "Files" tab, where a user can upload content (Word documents, photos, videos, etc.) and create folders to organize this content. The "Files" tab lends to Teams the functionality of a Google Drive. And just as in Google Drive, there is the option to copy and paste the link to any content you upload, making for easy document sharing during class. Here is how this all plays out in my context: to begin class, I will start a video call with my students and, in the video call chat, share the link to the content that we will be studying. The content may be an article that I have found online. I might also share the link to a worksheet that I have uploaded to Teams for my students to fill out as they are reading the article. When my students click on the link to the worksheet, they will be given the option of either downloading or editing it in real time. This is where the element of collaboration comes into the picture. I often ask students to fill out worksheets all together so they have the chance to collaborate in writing (and practice written interpersonal communication, which is often overlooked in the physical classroom). As they do so, I ask students to start a separate video call with a partner, so they also have the opportunity to collaborate orally. During partner work, I can track and easily circulate among the different video calls to listen in on conversations, assess student understanding, and give feedback. Afterward, students will come back to the main class meeting to discuss the content and present their take-aways. It is precisely this affordance for multi-mode communication (interpretive, interpersonal [oral and written], and presentational), combined with other useful features of different social networking applications (Facebook group posts and private messages, Google Drive file sharing, face-to-face video calls on Skype or Zoom), that makes Teams an especially effective platform for online language teaching and learning. [End Page 262] Clarissa C. Eagle Independent Scholar Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French

Quality Time

Editorial| December 18 2020 Quality Time Emily A. Engel Emily A. Engel Emily A. Engel is an independent scholar based in Southern California who has published on visual culture in early modern South America. She is the author of Pictured Politics: Visualizing Colonial History in South American Portrait Collections (University of Texas Press, 2020). She edited A Companion to Early Modern Lima (Brill, 2019) and coedited Manuscript Cultures of Colonial Mexico and Peru: New Questions and Approaches (Getty Publications, 2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (2020) 2 (4): 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2020.2.4.4 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Emily A. Engel; Quality Time. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 18 December 2020; 2 (4): 4–13. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2020.2.4.4 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentLatin American and Latinx Visual Culture Search Sometimes time moves like that, not straight but sideways, backward even, and like the owls, in silence, in broad and looping arcs.—Ben Ehrenreich1 The quality of time in Latin American and Latinx visual cultural expression became an ongoing fascination of mine as I researched and analyzed the history of South American political portraiture.2 When we consider artworks from their negotiated perspectives in time, the idea of the art object as whole, static, complete, and finished becomes fragmented. The renowned art historian of colonial Latin America George Kubler published The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (Yale University Press, 1962) as a temporal assessment of cultural production observed through the lens of continuity and rupture. My initial thoughts on the subject of time as related to the art of historical Latin America were originally inspired by my rereading of Kubler’s work—in particular, The Shape of... You do not currently have access to this content.

Rejoinder

Economic AffairsVolume 40, Issue 3 p. 464-466 DISCUSSION Rejoinder Edwin van de Haar, Corresponding Author edwinvdhaar@gmail.com Independent scholar, The Netherlands Correspondence Email: edwinvdhaar@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author Edwin van de Haar, Corresponding Author edwinvdhaar@gmail.com Independent scholar, The Netherlands Correspondence Email: edwinvdhaar@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 November 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/ecaf.12425Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume40, Issue3October 2020Pages 464-466 RelatedInformation

The Independent Scholar as Change Agent: The Case of Foreign Language Advocacy

There is a foreign language deficit in the United States, and the independent scholar, with both motivation and expertise, can play a significant role as a foreign language advocate, able to bridge the gap between communities and academia, and to operate with relatively more freedom that many language stakeholders, embedded in educational institutions and business environments. The skills set, or core competencies, of the independent scholar-advocate, the importance of online communities and advocacy, and agility in effective advocacy are examined. The case of foreign language advocacy could be generalized to include many other areas where the independent scholar can play a significant role as change agent for the greater good in our society and in our world

Being with the Dead: Burial, Ancestral Politics, and the Roots of Historical Consciousness. HansRuin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018. 272 pp.

American EthnologistVolume 47, Issue 3 p. 326-327 Book Review Being with the Dead: Burial, Ancestral Politics, and the Roots of Historical Consciousness. Hans Ruin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018. 272 pp. KRISTIN HANSSEN, KRISTIN HANSSEN Independent Scholar, OsloSearch for more papers by this author KRISTIN HANSSEN, KRISTIN HANSSEN Independent Scholar, OsloSearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12931Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume47, Issue3August 2020Pages 326-327 RelatedInformation

Postmodern Social Work: Reflective Practice and Education, Ken Moffatt

Postmodern Social Work: Reflective Practice and Education, Ken Moffatt Postmodern Social Work: Reflective Practice and Education, Ken Moffatt, New York, Columbia University Press, 2019, pp. 248, ISBN 9780231128018, $35.00 (p/b) Steve Rogowski Steve Rogowski Independent Scholar and Social Worker drbigpike@talktalk.net Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, bcaa066, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaa066 Published: 25 July 2020 Article history Accepted: 21 May 2020 Published: 25 July 2020

The Archive Iris Meder in Vienna, Austria

AbstractIris Meder (1965–2018) was a Vienna-based art historian. A large portion of her work and library is dedicated to the Danube region. On 15 November 2019, the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Architektur (Austrian Society for Architecture, ÖGFA) inaugurated the Archive Iris Meder. The author examines how Iris Meder, who grew up on the western border of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, became an expert in her field. Historical chronicles and the experience of the present are in accord: seldom can a private library’s books be preserved as a coherent and recognizable collection. The author gives a glimpse into the inner workings of an impressively versatile, highly knowledgeable independent scholar, and the journey undertaken by the ÖGFA to make her archive available to the public.

Making sense of political violence: an interview with Marc Sageman

Marc Sageman is an independent scholar on terrorism. After graduating from Harvard, he obtained an MD. and a PhD. (sociology) from New York University. He was a flight surgeon in the US. Navy and a...

Lehi’s Brass Ball: Astonishment and Inscription

Research Article| April 01 2020 Lehi’s Brass Ball: Astonishment and Inscription Rosalynde Welch Rosalynde Welch Rosalynde Welch is an independent scholar of Latter-day Saint literature, theology, and scripture. She holds a PhD in Early Modern English Literature from the University of California at San Diego. Her scholarship has appeared in BYU Studies, Mormon Studies Review, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Dialogue, and numerous edited volumes. She has served as a co-director of the Theology Seminar in Latter-day Saint Scripture. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (2020) 29: 20–49. https://doi.org/10.5406/jbookmormstud2.29.2020.0020 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Rosalynde Welch; Lehi’s Brass Ball: Astonishment and Inscription. Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1 April 2020; 29 20–49. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jbookmormstud2.29.2020.0020 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Book of Mormon Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Labours of Seduction in Immersive and Interactive Performance

Much theatrical work that calls itself ‘immersive’ uses tropes of the erotic to achieve its intended effects. In this article Rose Biggin identifies structural and performative strategies in the use of the erotic in this genre. What does it mean to identify the process of performed seduction as central to much immersive dramaturgy? Through readings of contemporary productions that draw upon (or appropriate) pre-existing erotically charged environments, the inevitable responsibilities for makers working in this context of immersion are considered, as is the importance of considering the consequences for those working in immersive spaces. Stress is laid on the crucial role that this form of performative labour often plays in immersive performance, and a continued recognition of its influence is emphasized. Rose Biggin is an independent scholar and theatre artist based in London. She received her PhD from the University of Exeter, researching audience immersion and the work of Punchdrunk, and both writes and makes work on gender, history, and language. She is author of Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience (2017).

Acceptable Exclusions and Promiscuous Creativity: The Life of an Independent Scholar

Acceptable Exclusions and Promiscuous Creativity:The Life of an Independent Scholar Cynthia R. Greenlee (bio) The independent scholar is the Great Illegible. She is less visible and more incorporeal than even the adjuncts whose labor feeds and supports higher education. One of the academy's many ironies is that intellectuals capable of rigorous inquiry cannot fathom what independent scholars do. I regularly hear such statements from conventionally employed scholars. Those ostensibly befuddled statements originate from various and sometimes overlapping concerns. Some derive from a particular brand of academic arrogance. Other questioners are comfortable with established institutions and have real questions about how to career-build outside those institutions, which cannot adequately amplify options that they undervalue (and that few of their scholars have even tried). So, even in the wake of pragmatic queries about how one might earn one's daily bread outside the academy, too many scholars display a stunning lack of curiosity about other ways of professional being. Even the academy's "alt-ac" label makes clear that the tenure track is the normal (read: normative) trajectory for those with enough resources, support, and fortitude to complete a doctorate. I am an intentionally independent historian and journalist. Emphasis on the "intentionally." The adverb matters, for the assumption is that most, if not all, independent scholars emerged from the job market bloodied and empty-handed. This belief is the natural byproduct of the scarcity of desirable higher-education teaching posts. It also stems from the university-based intellectual's incredulity that anyone would endure the travails of PhD studies only to shirk the search for that elusive job, with its supposedly carefree summers and relative freedom from the daily drudgery of the US worker. I am one of the people who ran through the doctoral-studies gauntlet and kept moving—toward other things. Discussions of independent scholarhood almost inevitably begin by assuming that nonaffiliated thinkers are subpar or unfortunate casualties of the job market. For me, being a historian and journalist outside the boundaries of the formal profession was a deliberate choice, even if it may not necessarily be a permanent one. I recognized the things specific to the academy that I did not want, those things I wanted to be independent of: heavy teaching loads; moving to out-of-the-way places where my family and social life would suffer; the high possibility of being [End Page 139] the only Black woman in a department; and the publish-or-perish culture where writing became less about pleasure and craft. Yet the decision-making process was not merely a negative exercise informed by what I did not want. I balk at framing the independent scholar's liminal status as a "plight," although this status comes with structural and academy-imposed professional liabilities—namely, lack of access to institutional funds like subventions and lack of eligibility for fellowships and grants from non-university funders who require affiliation. These are understood as acceptable exclusions, so acceptable that the few organizations that give coveted postdoctoral fellowships or even small conference travel grants do not seem to consider what they are doing when they require applicants to have an institutional affiliation. It is one thing if, for instance, a journal editorship must come with department or university resources to do its work. But it is quite another to bar independent scholars from eligibility from much-needed research funds to conduct their work. Those without tenure-track positions, research budgets, and institutional membership can struggle to do the work and publish it, preferably in monograph form, because we must self-fund. Not producing work with scholarly regularity or in the "right" venues lends further fire to the idea that independent scholars do not produce quality work that merits even the chance to compete for funding. That major obstacle aside, my opting out of the academy after a postdoctoral fellowship ("before you even get started," lamented a mentor) was a decision grounded in positives. Buoyed by exemplary work of such Black feminist theorists as Toni Cade Bambara (who sometimes taught as an adjunct but remained largely out of the academy) and Audre Lorde (who served as a poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College), I understood...

President's Note

President's Note Amy Singer The "President's Note" briefly summarizes recent OTSA news. Time-dependent news and information are sent to members by email and/or posted to H-Turk, our H-Net network (https://networks.h-net.org/h-turk). OTSA is a membership organization. OTSA holds its regular members' meeting, including the announcement of awards, in conjunction with the annual Middle East Studies Association conference in the fall of each year. Annual dues entitle members to receive the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, stand for election to become Board members and officers, and to serve on OTSA committees. Annual dues and contributions fund the annual OTSA awards and cover the minimal administrative costs of the organization as well as those associated with publishing and delivering JOTSA. Recognizing that earning power varies enormously among our current and potential members, we invite you to choose the membership category that best fits your budget. There is no difference among the categories in the status and benefits they offer. If you are not currently an OTSA member and would like to join, please access our website at http://www.ottomanturkishstudiesassociation.org/ and look for the "join" or "renew" link. A warm welcome to newly joining and rejoining members. Hoş geldiniz! News of OTSA The 2020 OTSA elections took place electronically in September. Our thanks to the members of the 2020 Nominating Committee for their thorough and considered preparation of the slate of candidates. The committee was chaired by Tijana Krstić (Central European University), serving together with members Aslı Iğsız (New York University) and Seçil Yılmaz (Franklin and Marshall College). Tijana now rotates off the committee as Antonis Hadjikyriacou (Panteion University, Athens) joins it. Our sincere appreciation to Tijana for her work on the committee! [End Page 5] Board Members Senem Aslan (Bates College) and Murat Yıldız (Skid-more College) have completed their terms, and we thank them for donating generously from their wisdom, time, and energies to OTSA matters, in addition to all their other responsibilities. Giancarlo Casale (University of Minnesota), Emine Evered (Michigan State University), and Will Smiley (University of New Hampshire) are now joined by newly-elected Board members Aslı Bali (UCLA) and Shirine Hamadeh (Koç University). We welcome them and look forward to the contribution that new ideas and perspectives bring to the OTSA Board. We deeply regret that Maureen Jackson (Independent Scholar) will be leaving her position as OTSA Secretary.* It has been a pleasure to work with her and we are grateful for her careful attention to OTSA matters, especially during the long months of the continuing COVID pandemic. Nominated and confirmed by the OTSA Board, Carole Woodall (University of Colorado Colorado Springs) now takes up the position of OTSA Secretary. Patricia Blessing (Princeton University) continues as OTSA Treasurer. Effective 1 December 2020, Baki Tezcan (UC Davis) has succeeded me as OTSA President. I will continue to serve on the Board for one year as Past-President. I am delighted to be passing this responsibility to Baki, who steps into the role with welcome new energies and ideas. He is well-known to all of us as a prolific and innovative scholar. He has already inaugurated a Zoom seminar series called "W'OTSAp in Ottoman and Turkish Studies?" launched in November 2020. The first event featured the 2020 Fisher Article Prize winner, Erik Blackthorne-O'Barr (See prize details below). We are all looking forward to meeting regularly in this forum! Baki steps into this OTSA leadership position at the beginning of our 50th-anniversary year. He and I have begun a project interviewing our predecessors in this role in order to create an oral history record of our organization at this jubilee juncture. We look forward to sharing these interviews with you during the coming year. 2020 Prize Winners We applaud the 2020 OTSA Prize winners, and thank all the committee members for volunteering their time and expertise to read and evaluate this year's submissions. Over the past two years, different members of OTSA have suggested that we need to evaluate critically the names attached to our prizes, in particular [End Page 6] those of...

The Collected Dickens: A Bibliography of the Lifetime U.K. Editions of Charles Dickens's Works by Jeremy Parrott

Reviewed by: The Collected Dickens: A Bibliography of the Lifetime U.K. Editions of Charles Dickens's Works by Jeremy Parrott Joel J. Brattin (bio) Jeremy Parrott. The Collected Dickens: A Bibliography of the Lifetime U.K. Editions of Charles Dickens's Works. Szeged: Kakapo Press, 2020. Pp. 294. $50; £40; €45. ISBN 978-615-00-5916-7. Jeremy Parrott, independent scholar and the author of this essential new bibliography, is best known as the discoverer and owner of the markedup set of All the Year Round, which identifies hundreds of contributors to Dickens's periodical. Scholars around the world eagerly await publication of his research pertaining to that remarkable discovery. But in the meantime, they will be delighted with this informative, interesting, nicely illustrated and fully researched bibliographic work. The volume is an important one, offering both basic and esoteric information about a topic rarely discussed and often misunderstood: collected editions of Dickens's works published in the UK in his lifetime. All Dickens scholars, Victorianists, Dickens collectors, and book dealers will be grateful for the work, and many generalists and Dickens enthusiasts will appreciate Parrott's insights into Dickens's publishing career. In his succinct introduction, Parrott outlines the five relevant collected editions: the Cheap edition (1847–68, 18 volumes), the Library edition (1858–59, 22 volumes), the Illustrated Library edition (1861–74, 30 volumes), the People's edition (1865–67, 25 volumes), and the Charles Dickens edition (1867–75, 21 volumes). He identifies the scope and relevance of his bibliography, and summarizes some of the limitations of and errors in previously-published work on this topic, noting the scarcity of most of these volumes, identifying "ghosts" (books described in bibliographies that do not actually exist), and also a few recently discovered books, like the extraordinarily rare 1866 printing of the Illustrated Library edition of Our Mutual Friend – now identified as the second edition of Dickens's last complete novel. Parrott reveals Dickens's income from each of the books in these editions over time, presenting that information in a useful graph. Finally, Parrott clearly lays out the format and conventions for the descriptive bibliography of each of the 116 volumes to follow. In this review, I will consider Parrott's discussion of the five collected editions, move on to an examination of his bibliographic descriptions, and conclude with some comments about the illustrations. In his introduction to the Cheap edition, Parrott reproduces a little-known [End Page 432] address from the sixth monthly instalment of Dombey and Son advertising the edition, gives the history of earlier cheap editions of other authors, and notes that earlier bibliographers identified as few as 15 and as many as 22 volumes in the series. Prices varied between 2s/6d and five shillings per volume; even the longer novels appeared in a single volume. Parrott provides notes about extra illustrations and binding variants in the volumes, transcribes the new prefaces in full, and gives the dates of subsequent reprints and the size of print runs. Parrott explains why Dickens provided no new preface for the Cheap edition of David Copperfield – though new prefaces were an important feature in the edition. He also offers a plausible explanation for the publication of Great Expectations some three months before A Tale of Two Cities in this series. Though the Cheap edition was aimed for the domestic UK market, Parrott tells us it was later issued in 1866 by Lippincott in Philadelphia. Parrott notes that The Uncommercial Traveller appeared in book form for the first time in this edition, and that Our Mutual Friend, the final volume in the Cheap edition, is extremely rare, with at most 2,000 copies printed (less than half the number for other titles); perhaps only about 1,000 of those copies sold. He says the only copy he has found in any public collection is in the Charles Dickens Museum Library – the same copy I mentioned in my Everyman Dickens edition of the novel (London: Dent, 2000). In his consideration of the Library edition, Parrott identifies the motivation for the edition: "a more substantial and permanent repository of Dickens's collected works than the Cheap edition." He highlights its poor...