Liberal Practices Research Articles

Mo1164 Red Blood Cell Transfusion Is Associated With Increased Rebleeding but Fresh Frozen Plasma With Increased Mortality in Acute Non-Variceal Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Background: Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a common medical emergency resulting in significant morbidity, mortality and cost of care. Whilst red blood cell (RBC) transfusion may be life-saving in massive UGIB, recent controlled trials suggest that a liberal transfusion practice is associated with increased re-bleeding rates and reduced survival after UGIB. 1 Aim: To determine the association between transfusion and rebleeding, mortality at 30 days and at one year after acute non-variceal UGIB. Methods: A retrospective, cohort study of patients who underwent endoscopy at three Western Australian tertiary hospitals for a suspected acute non-variceal UGIB in the period 2008-2010. A detailed chart review and linkage to hospital morbidity, emergency department, death registration and patient blood management data was performed. Logistic regression models were used to investigate factors associated with odds of an early rebleed. Cox models were used to identify factors associated with mortality outcomes. Results: There were 2,238 individuals with a total of 2,370 UGIB admission records. The median age at presentation for first UGIB was 70 years (range 19 to 99 years) and 63% of the cohort was male. Increasing volumes of early RBC transfusion was associated with increased odds of an early rebleed in a dose response trend but only in patients who presented with an Hb >90g/dl (OR 1.5; 95% CI 1.3-1.8; p=0.001). 30-day mortality was 4.9% (n=109). An increased rate of 30 day mortality was observed with increasing number of units of FFP (HR 2.3; 95% CI 1.1-4.6; p=0.02) and platelets (HR 3.7; 95% CI 1.8-7.7; p=0.001) transfused during the UGIB admission after adjusting for other patient and treatment related covariates. There were a further 200 deaths (9%) that occurred after 30 days but within one year of UGIB admission. Transfusion of greater than five units of FFP during the UGIB admission was associated with increased one year mortality (HR 6.7; 95% CI 3.3-13.4; p=0.001) but only for patients who had an INR 150,000 and after adjusting for other covariates. RBC transfusion was not associated with mortality outcomes. Conclusion: In this large, multicentre study, early RBC transfusion was associated with increased rebleeding in patients who presented with Hb > 90g/dl. FFP transfusion and not RBC transfusion was associated with increased mortality outcomes for patients, particularly those with a normal coagulation profile. Reference: 1. Villanueva et al, NEJM 2013; 368: 11-21.

Authoritarian Liberalism in the European Constitutional Imagination: Second Time as Farce?

AbstractThe current crisis in Europe recalls the theory and practice of authoritarian liberalism, the idea that in order to protect economic liberalism and respect for fiscal discipline, representative democracy must be curtailed. This configuration was first identified by Hermann Heller in late Weimar as a response to the imperative to maintain the ideological separation of state and economy and presented by Karl Polanyi as conditioned by broader geo‐political pressure to maintain the gold standard in the inter‐war period. Authoritarian liberalism is now conditioned by conflicting imperatives to maintain the project of the single currency, respect ordo‐liberal concerns of moral hazard, and protect ‘militant democracy’ but only in one country. Does this reflect a broader geo‐political disequilibrium, due to tensions between market integration, constitutionalism and democracy?

No Future without Transition: A Critique of Liberal Peace

In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of control and toward techniques of reconciliation that are too often reserved for transitional societies. I first critique the liberal peace model on the grounds that it lacks an internal mechanism for maintaining peace and stability. I then discuss liberal praxis through an analysis of the US prison system, to demonstrate that a society can be nominally liberal and still fail to meet its own standards. Using the US as a cautionary tale, I suggest that by responding to social conflict through force, the liberal system increases instability by fragmenting communities and maintaining an individualistic order that is combative, thus leaving peace and justice as dormant possibilities. After critiquing liberal theory and practice, I discuss a corrective alternative, an ethics and politics of reconciliation that draws on restorative and transitional responses to instability.

The Politics of Poverty: A Contribution to a Franciscan Political Theology

This essay reconstructs the medieval practice of evangelical poverty as a resource for contemporary political theology. Francis of Assisi and his predecessors committed themselves to a form of voluntary poverty that directly contested the distribution of social power in twelfth-century Europe. Evangelical poverty was for them a critical and liberating practice. Yet they disagreed about how this practice was related to standing norms of ecclesial authority. Francis broke with the earlier movements by defining evangelical poverty as a posture of humility and obedience rather than as a counterclaim on apostolic authority. These movements are worth retrieving both for their shared commitment to a liberating poverty and for the questions they raise about the relationship between poverty and authority.

Neo-liberal Capitalistic Policies in Modern Conservation and the Ultimate Commodification of Nature

The recent changes in global politics and the advancement of science and technology, have paved way for the modification and commodification of nature. The development of capitalism, and changes in modern conservation ideologies occurred at the same period, which is more than just a co-incidence. The capitalistic policies in conservation are shaping a new perspective of global environmentalism, which is presented as a spectacle. Whether these capitalistic policies stand the purpose is often questionable. In this work, I am going to discuss two main neo liberal practices in modern conservation, namely protected areas with reference to eco-tourism, and the Payment for Ecosystem Services with reference to REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Forest Degradation and Deforestation), which shape modern environmentalism. These policies in modern environmentalism have made it easier to commodify nature, failing to understand that indigenous people living in forests do not have economic conditions, they have livelihood issues. So, The neo-liberal capitalistic policies has led to the loss of intrinsic value of nature, affecting the indigenous lifestyles and serves as an instrument of modern imperialism, acting as a boon to the ‘Transnational capital class’ and a curse to the indigenous people.

Some Tasks of Minjung Theology in the Age of Globalization

In the article I ask whether the basic concerns of minjung theology that were articulated within the political boundary of a national state are still significant in the age of globalization. If we can answer this question positively, then we have to ask how to elaborate and materialize those concerns in post-national constellations. With such a question in mind, first, I explain three current trends of minjung theology, those are, 1) critical and creative succession to the achievements of the first-generation minjung theologians, 2) post-modern reconstruction of minjung theology, and 3) theological-missiological discourse on the reality of minjung and their liberation praxis. Second, I characterize the process of globalization as spread of capitalism with insane plunder and oppression and suggest that minjung theology in search for an alternative world should again integrate Marx’s critique of political economy into theological reflection. Third, I highlight the subject status of minjung as one of the most significant themes of minjung theology. I distinguish three paradigms for the subject status of minjung from one another, namely, socio-biographical paradigm, class struggle paradigm, and network movement paradigm. In the age of globalization I accept that social movements must shape networks, but accentuate that it is empty to separate the issues of gender, race, and generation from class issue, while it is blind to reduce such cultural issues to the issue of class. Fourth, I deal with how to conceptualize the question of nation (in Korean ‘minjok’) in the age of globalization. I pay attention to the danger of considering nation as substance and suggest that minjung theology should make an open approach to the question of nation. Only with such a premise minjung theology can contribute to shaping a peace nation on the way to national reunification. Fifth and finally I suggest key agendas that minjung theology should engage in the age of globalization: economic democracy, welfare, global citizenship and property order reform..

Religion in a Liberal State, by Gavin D’Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers (eds)

Gavin D'Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers (eds) Religion in a Liberal State Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 258 pp., $85.00 (cloth) $29.99 (paper), ISBN: 978-1-10704-203-2 (cloth), 978-1-107-65007-7 (paper)The proper relationship between religion and politics has long been a matter of controversy. Western societies since the Reformation have had to deal with issues of relations between Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. In modern societies, these tensions are complicated further both by increasing religious diversity and by challenges from agnosticism and atheism. The multidisciplinary collection of essays Religion in a Liberal State, edited by Gavin D'Costa, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers, is concerned precisely with these issues. The collection encompasses the Zutshi-Smith Lecture delivered in 2010 by political philosopher Raymond Plant at the University of Bristol, and a number of responses it inspired from across the disciplines of law, sociology, politics, and theology. The essays engage with the prevailing view among scholars that there has been a long-term trend toward and challenge it by stressing the apparent resurgence of religious practice to highlight how notions like religion, secularization, and the public-private distinction are less straightforward or unambiguous than they once appeared.As Religion in a Liberal State makes clear, social scientists have conventionally adopted two approaches to the study of religion. The Weberian approach assumed that the diffusion of science and knowledge would eventually and inevitably lead to secularization. The Durkheimian approach focused on roles played by institutions. This latter approach is open to the interpretation that, as roles like those of providing schools, hospitals, and social services, which were once filled by churches, have increasingly been taken over by other institutions, the profile of religious institutions would wane. Empty pews in Western European churches helped reinforce the notion that secularization represented the future. The United States appeared to be an exception. However, developments in both domestic and international politics have made scholars reconsider the apparent inevitability of secularization. Scholars have also noted that reference to secularization conceals the potential for different trends depending on whether one is simply looking at adherence to practices and church attendance, at societal influence of religious institutions, or at the relevance of religious values to political culture. Scholars increasingly refer to multiple secularises rather than to secularization. At issue is not only an empirical question of whether or not secularization is taking place, but also such normative questions as: whether a state's policies can ever reflect religious values; from a secularist perspective, whether resort to religious language in public dialogue should be discouraged; and, from a religious perspective, whether a believer can accommodate liberal practices without compromising her/ his religious beliefs.European institutions and the European Court of Human Rights are exercising increasing influence over these questions. In his lecture, Plant expresses concern that citizens and policymakers are being forced to confront certain issues about the influence of religion in public life due to the increasing salience of liberalism, as well as to the practice of courts exercising powers of judicial review in the interest of constitutionally entrenched understandings of human rights even in states like the United Kingdom, where the political culture and constitution were once defined by unwritten tradition, the common law, and parliamentary sovereignty. In the past, he argues, ambiguities, anomalies, and inconsistencies could be overlooked, especially when they did not create serious injustice or hardship. The formal establishment of the Church of England, which was once associated with the persecution of other religious groups, became a historical relic to which most citizens of the United Kingdom devoted little thought. …

The relevance of the church in oppressive situations: The Praxis of Liberation Theology in Africa

In many respects, the situation in Africa now resembles the situation in Latin America under which liberation theology irrupted. A situation under which both human and non human factors (external and internal) reduces the masses of the people to abject poverty and misery. African theologians have been attempting to grapple with these problems and to relate the gospel to the practical issues, whether social and political, cultural and liturgical which confronts them. This is because the Christian faith is not something extrinsic to the afflictions of the oppressed, but it is rather a motivating force which demands that the oppressed must be liberated in order to make room for the realization of the historical translation of the salvific deed of Jesus and the salvific will of God. However, so far, it appears that African theologians have not given enough thought to linking theology closely to the socio-economic and political situations in Africa as it has been done in Latin America. This situation has therefore called for an adequate and clear theology and the development of liberation praxis born out of the living experience of the African people. We therefore believe that the stage is now set when African theologians will help the people to uncover the liberative dimension of their faith and call for a discipleship in praxis as the beginning of theological reflection.

TRENDS AND VARIATION IN TRANSFUSION RATES FOLLOWING CARDIAC SURGERY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, 2009 TO 2013

Observational studies have shown an increased risk of morbidity and mortality in patients receiving blood transfusions following cardiac surgery, and recent trials have shown that restrictive transfusion practices are equivalent or better than liberal practices. Given donor blood is a costly and limited resource, administering blood transfusions more efficiently and appropriately is a priority. However, there is a lack of data available on current transfusion practices in Canada to help guide quality improvement efforts. The purpose of this study was to determine the trends and patterns of transfusion practice for adult cardiac surgeries in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Data on isolated CABG, isolated valve, and CABG+valve surgeries for patients aged 20 and older from Jan 1, 2009 to Dec 31, 2013 from the provincial cardiac registry (HEARTis) were linked to the provincial Central Transfusion Registry (CTR) to obtain data on blood transfusions within 30 days of surgery. Trends were examined by type of surgery and by blood component. Variation in transfusion rates was also assessed by surgeon. From 2009 to 2013, the rate of RBC transfusion declined from 44.6% to 31.4% for isolated CABG, 42.8% to 35.5% for isolated valve, and 65.2% to 52.3% for CABG+valve surgeries. The total units of RBC transfused also decreased during this period. The proportion of patients receiving plasma and platelets following surgery has also decreased during this time. Despite the decline in transfusion rates, there remains large variation in rates for individual surgeons. Transfusion rates following isolated CABG surgery ranged from 18.2% to 57.5% for RBC, 3.5% to 41.0% for platelets, and 5.3% to 38.3% for plasma. Although some of this variation can likely be attributed to the patient mix of risk factors, transfusion rates as high as 57.5% for RBC is unlikely to be driven by clinical factors alone. RBC transfusion rates have been on the decline in British Columbia in recent years, with a 13.2% decrease from 2009 to 2013. More modest decreases in plasma and platelet transfusion rates were observed during this time. There was wide variation in transfusion rates for RBC, plasma, and platelets between surgeons. The observed variation provides an opportunity to examine patient risk factors as well as hospital and surgeon practices that contribute to this variation, in order to identify ways to avoid unnecessary transfusions.

Contemporary African American literature: the living canon

Foreword Mat Johnson, University of Houston Acknowledgments Introduction Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner, Penn State University I. Politics of Publishing, Pedagogy, and Readership 1. The Point of Entanglement: Modernism, Diaspora, and Toni Morrison's Love Houston A. Baker, Jr., Vanderbilt University 2. The Historical Burden that Only Oprah Can Bear: African American Satirists and the State of the Literature Darryl Dickson-Carr, Southern Methodist University 3. Black is Gold: African American Literature, Literacy, and Pedagogical Legacies Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas 4. Hip Hop Fiction (feat. Women Writers) or, Other Things Hip Hop Music Has Taught Black Fiction Eve Dunbar, Vassar College 5. Street Literature and the Mode of Spectacular Writing: Popular Fiction between Sensationalism, Education, Politics and Entertainment Kristina Graaff, Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University of Berlin II. Alternative Genealogies 6. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Slave: Visual Artistry as Agency in the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery Evie Shockley, Rutgers University 7. Variations on the Theme: Black Family, Nationhood, Lesbianism and Sadomasochistic Desire in Marci Blackman's Po Man's Child Carmen Phelps, University of Toledo 8. Bad-Brother-Man: Black Folk Figure Narratives in Comics James Braxton Peterson, Bucknell University III. Beyond Authenticity 9. Sampling the Sonics of Sex (Funk) in Paul Beatty's Slumberland L. H. Stallings, Indiana University 10. Urkel No More? Black Geeks in Contemporary Black Literature Alexander Weheliye, Northwestern University 11. The Crisis of Authenticity in Contemporary African American Literature Richard Schur, Drury University 12. Someday We'll All Be Free: Contemporary Fiction and the Post-Oppression Narrative Martha Southgate, Brooklyn Novelist IV. Pedagogical Approaches and Implications 13. Untangling History, Dismantling Fear: Teaching Tayari Jones's Leaving Atlanta Trudier Harris, UNC-Chapel Hill, Emerita 14. Reading Kyle Baker's Nat Turner with a Group of Collegiate Black Men Howard Rambsy II, Southern Illinois University 15. Toward the Theoretical Practice of Conceptual Liberation: Using An Africana Studies Approach to Reading African American Literary Texts Greg Carr, Howard University and Dana Williams, Howard University Afterword Alice Randall, Vanderbilt Novelist Annotated Bibliography Pia Deas, Lincoln University and David Green, St. Johns University Index

Articulating the Scaffolding of White Supremacy: The Act of Naming in Liberation

Liberatory practices require that social workers think about categorical social stratification in terms of power hierarchies brought about through practices of individuals, cultures, and institutions. Our focus is on how scaffoldings of white supremacy impact organizational, structural, and professional interactions in social work. We provide examples and stories to illustrate operations of white supremacy and offer alternatives through a counter story. The counter-story reveals how transparency, accountability, and caucusing (with structured safeguards) support alliances that build transformative restructuring. We emphasize the importance of interrupting structures and translations of white supremacy on an ongoing basis.

Monitoring compliance with transfusion guidelines in hospital departments by electronic data capture.

The practice of transfusing red blood cells is still liberal in some centres suggesting a lack of compliance with guidelines recommending transfusion of red blood cells at haemoglobin levels of 6-8 g/dL in the non-bleeding patient. Few databases provide ongoing feedback of data on pre-transfusion haemoglobin levels at the departmental level. In a tertiary care hospital, no such data were produced before this study. Our aim was to establish a Patient Blood Management database based on electronic data capture in order to monitor compliance with transfusion guidelines at departmental and hospital levels. Hospital data on admissions, diagnoses and surgical procedures were used to define the populations of patients. Data on haemoglobin measurements and red blood cell transfusions were used to calculate pre-transfusion haemoglobin, percentage of transfused patients and transfusion volumes. The model dataset include 33,587 admissions, of which 10% had received at least one unit of red blood cells. Haemoglobin measurements preceded 96.7% of the units transfused. The median pre-transfusion haemoglobin was 8.9 g/dL (interquartile range 8.2-9.7) at the hospital level. In only 6.5% of the cases, transfusion was initiated at 7.3 g/dL or lower as recommended by the Danish national transfusion guideline. In 27% of the cases, transfusion was initiated when the haemoglobin level was 9.3 g/dL or higher, which is not recommended. A median of two units was transfused per transfusion episode and per hospital admission. Transfusion practice was more liberal in surgical and intensive care units than in medical departments. We described pre-transfusion haemoglobin levels, transfusion rates and volumes at hospital and departmental levels, and in surgical subpopulations. Initial data revealed an extensive liberal practice and low compliance with national transfusion guidelines, and identified wards in need of intervention.

New challenges in immigration theory: an overview

Normative political theory over recent decades has focused mainly on what ought to be done as far as migration policies are concerned. It faces a basic challenge, which stems from two competing, yet equally fundamental, ideals underpinning liberal democratic societies: a commitment to moral universalism and the exclusionary requirement of democracy. The objective of this special issue, ‘New Challenges in Immigration Theory’, is to provide a conceptual overview of (some) immigration theories and to highlight the challenges new streams of immigration pose for normative (political) theory and liberal democratic practice. The issue will consider how to reconcile state-based exclusion with a commitment to equal moral concern for all persons, by focusing on the non-standard immigration questions that have so far been ‘neglected’ by normative political theory. In line with this objective, the issue will discuss some of the inadequacies of the dominant political theories of immigration and show how such theories can be expanded to take account of new migration challenges such as brain drain, climate migration, detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, rights of labour migrants, transnational networks of movement, and so on.

Restorative justice as reflective practice and applied pedagogy on college campuses

Restorative justice (RJ) is both a methodology for dealing with conflict and a process for modeling more positive human relations after social harm. As both method and process, the benefits of developing restorative practices on college campuses go well beyond just the many positive community-oriented outcomes of facilitated conflict resolution processes. We argue that the opportunities for reflective pedagogy and learning for student facilitators outpace the pragmatic benefits to the parties in conflict. By explaining the reflective learning and theoretical interaction that has blossomed between and among students and teachers during the implementation of a RJ initiative in DePauw University’s Conflict Studies Program (CSP), this paper problematizes the role of student engagement and practice in analytical learning about conflict and conflict resolution. The CSP/RJ project, a liberal arts practice initiative, provides a space and structure for undergraduate students to apply conflict theory and learn through the experience of facilitating restorative conferences. Restorative conferences facilitate dialog between harmed individuals and those responsible for causing the harm. In providing victim(s) with a voice and offender(s) the opportunity to take primary responsibility for repairing past harm, restorative conferences represent an untapped resource for students of applied peace education and teachers’ interested in applied conflict pedagogy.

The return of plural society: statebuilding and social splintering

This article argues that liberal practices of peace- and statebuilding in post-conflict societies contribute to cement ethnic divisions and exacerbate social and spatial splintering. Drawing on historical experiences from colonial policy and from post-colonial international development and statebuilding the article argues that a particular problem lies in the conception and character of the state being promoted. Although liberal peace- and statebuilding have come under accumulating critique over the past decade, the practices and liberal interventionist agenda has consolidated and continued to expand. It has come to increasingly express an authoritarianism and lack of legitimacy and democracy that has recently given rise to a critique in terms of ‘post-liberal’ governance. This article instead argues that the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of governance is an extension of and fully in line with historical liberal practice as well as the theory and ideology of neoliberalism.

Two Apostles of Loneliness: Caryll Houselander and Catherine Doherty on the Mystical Body of Christ

They met only once, briefly, after prayer on a gray afternoon in London: She was a very small woman with huge big spectacles through which she could hardly see. I first met her, not knowing who she was, in chapel of Grail in England. This person was praying and I was interested in little person. Anyhow, there was an air about her that I couldn't understand--I was drawn to her. So we had tea together, eternal good English tea, at 4pm and then I found out that she was Caryll. That didn't tell me anything for I hadn't read any of her books. She was very, very shy, andYvonne, who was in charge of Grail at time inkled that she was a writer. But it didn't penetrate until I got home and first read ThisWar is Passion. After that I collected everything that she wrote. (1) It must have been quite a meeting: Doherty, who scribbled those words in front of one of Houselander's books, was a former noblewoman, but she was a self-proclaimed recluse; Doherty was a baroness larger than life with a penchant for properly placed explicative. Houselander was relatively more restrained and rather frail; Doherty was forced to flee many lands, while Houselander rarely left her comfortable London surroundings. Doherty spoke with a thick Russian accent, Houselander with poshest of English. Yet, as different as they may have appeared socially, internally they shared same solitude: neither enjoyed secure intimacy with another, neither was able to delight in lifelong companionship, neither enjoyed comforts of life-long marriage and wonder of raising her own family. Both were quintessential pilgrims of twentieth century. For has a human soul escaped pains of loneliness. The solitude of Adam echoes throughout every human gaze and in every human act, each of us stretching outward for completion and wholeness. Such solitude compels us to spend our lives searching for a savior who can finally rescue us from our restlessness. Although inevitable and inescapable, there was something about past century that rendered social divisions all more urgent, more widespread, more institutionalized. From blistering battles to cold dictatorships, from loosening of basic human virtues to strangling of simple human joys, twentieth century beheld new types of political and intellectual systems that fostered human alienation. In economics, institutionalization of Marxist theories of alienation resulted in totalitarian regimes. In philosophy, radical existentialism argued that there could be no real knowledge of other; each of us is rather doomed and destined to remain locked within our own limitations. L'enfer c'est les autres--Hell is other people. Thinkers such as Sartre and Camus highlighted our inherent estrangement from one another as unique essence of human person. Theology moved from doctrinal precision to liberative praxis, scrambling to show that God is squarely on side of those in a particular economic class, social situation, or gender. Was it not in such turbulence that Christian West received one of its great life stories, The Long Loneliness? In response, however, these years consequently produced some of most significant reflections on solitude and solidarity as well. Where political ideologies inevitably failed, spiritual remedies mercifully arose. Take, for example, Pius XII's 1943 encyclical, Mystici Corporis. At height of Great War stood a pope amid the cities, towns and fertile fields strewn with massive ruins and defiled with blood of brothers ([section]4), calling world to find comfort in how Jesus Christ never ceases to look down with especial love on his spotless spouse so sorely tried in her earthly exile; and when he sees her in danger, saves her from tempestuous sea ([section]39). Out of these tempests of Nazism, Fascism, and atheism arose another Christian leader, Blessed John Paul II. …

‘Between life and death’: On land, silence and liberation in the capital city

This article reflects on the unfinished task of liberation – as expressed in issues of land – and drawing from the work of Franz Fanon and the Durban-based social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission statement of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, as well as the Capital Cities Research Project based in the same university. Reflecting on the ‘living death’ of millions of landless people on the one hand, and the privatisation of liberation on the other, it argues that a liberating praxis of engagement remains a necessity in order to break the violent silences that perpetuate exclusion.

Marriage, Gender, and Desire in Early Enlightenment German Comedy by Edward T. Potter (review)

Reviewed by: Marriage, Gender, and Desire in Early Enlightenment German Comedy by Edward T. Potter Nicole Calian Marriage, Gender, and Desire in Early Enlightenment German Comedy. By Edward T. Potter. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2012. Pp. 210. Cloth $75.00. ISBN 978-1571135292. Potter’s study examines how various comedic texts of the mid-eighteenth century—the satirical Saxon comedy, the sentimental comedy, and the pastoral play—were involved in generating “their own symbolic universe, in which marriage functioned differently than it did in the contemporary cultural context” (177). This “contemporary cultural context” is explicated mainly in chapter one through Christoph Gottsched’s aesthetic treatises as well as Johann Fürchtegott Gellert’s university lectures. Chapter one functions as the point of departure as well as the theoretical backdrop against which the other plays are read. The plays are then also read against each other to reveal a disjuncture in the Enlightenment project to morally reform a populace by aesthetic means. The “symbolic universe” in the selected comedies promotes cross-dressing, marriage resisters, and male and female same-sex desire as alternatives to the emerging discourse of the new normative concept of marriage (i.e., marriage based on sentiment, not on economic or social considerations). The comparatively obscure dramatic works limited to the time period of the 1740s navigate relatively unchartered territory, which is always exciting. These plays are: J. C. Gottsched’s Atalanta, C. F. Gellert’s Die zärtlichen Schwestern, J. E. Schlegel’s Der Triumph der guten Frauen, G. E. Lessing’s Der Misogyne (the one-act version of 1748, not the more popular three-act version of 1767), and Th. J. Quistorp’s Der Hypochondrist. The choice of comedies rather than tragedies follows Christian Neuhuber’s assertion that comedies “regularly exhibit a potentially destabilizing self-reflexivity that is not present in tragedies” (22). This presumed self-reflexivity serves Potter as procedural focus when he evaluates the poetics and pedagogical aesthetics of selected comedies in their efficacy to convey moral messages. As such Potter’s study situates itself between the methodological approaches of close reading, performance studies, gender studies, queer studies and most importantly, given his focus on meta-reflexive dramatic commentary, reception aesthetics. The approach preferred by Potter himself however is that of a “densely contextualized close reading” (1). While this leads to a very welcome complete paucity of theoretical jargon, when discussing each of the individual comedic texts it also makes an overarching analysis that would situate these individual readings in their highly connoted contextual discursive practices fall somewhat short. When these close readings based on theatrical self-reflexivity work well, ambiguous conflations in reader response vs. efficacy of moral reform are revealed: In chapter two, entitled “The Virgin Huntress Tamed: J. C. Gottsched’s Atalanta and the Erasure of Female Autonomy,” Potter shows that on the surface, the threat of the figure of Atalanta as marriage resister is defused by the evocation of the incest taboo. However, the inter-textual reference to the cognitive failure of Atalanta to reflect upon and reform [End Page 163] her marriage resisting ways independent of biological considerations calls into question the very promotion of the institution of marriage based on love. Potter thus concludes that the efficacy of Gottsched’s own stated theoretical project of moral reform via the theater is not fulfilled by his own concurrent literary output. On the other hand, a different level of supposed female freedom is undercut as chapter four, entitled “The Clothes Make the Man: J. E. Schlegel’s Der Triumph der guten Frauen,” lays out. In Schlegel’s play the character of Hilaria engages in the potentially liberating practice of female cross-dressing. This practice, however, does not explicate female same-sex desire. Rather, the construction of gender identity aids in attaining knowledge, which in turn allows for a shift in the balance of power. The aesthetic function of this shift in power serves to entangle Hilaria in a traditional form of marriage, thus limiting her cross-dressing ways. The play not only negates the potential for female same-sex desire, but it also subjugates its female characters into a normative institution of marriage sustained by fundamentally patriarchal structures of power...

Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion

It has been more than 15 years since the philosopher Enrique Dussel published Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion in Spanish; its recent publication in English points to how it has become a touchstone for contemporary critical thinking. The importance of this work lies, on the one hand, in how it demonstrates the force of philosophical thought that reproduces itself in the periphery of the world-system and, on the other hand, in how it poses theoretical, ethical, and political questions radically important for humanity in this third millennium. In this sense, the book questions the hegemonic ethics that postulates the “save who you can” ideology of capitalism and even justifies social Darwinism.We have before us a work that from the introduction confronts the hegemonic vision of history — in Walter Benjamin's sense of the term — as not part of the Hellenic world but of North Africa and the Middle East, relativizing the role of Europe in the formation of a global culture. One should note that this historical description has the “philosophical intent” of calling into question the myth of modernity, the ideology of progress, and alleged Western superiority (p. 1).In the first part, “Foundation of Ethics,” the author states the three primary principles (or moments) that configure the architectural framework of the book. First is the “material principle,” which touches upon “suffering corporeality” derived from the victim's negative experiences (p. 284). Second is the “formal principle of morality” (p. 141), which refers to the application of the truth/validity norm and furthermore most valuably reformulates the “discourse ethics” proposed by Karl-Otto Apel (p. 121); this principle maintains a fruitful dialogue with and complements the material principle. Last is the “principle of feasibility,” which focuses upon context or environment, consequently weighing what is factually possible. With this principle, the instrumental role of reason is properly placed by precisely subsuming it to a single objective: the production, reproduction, and development of human life in community. Yet the author mentions that no perfect system or institution exists, maintaining that every system always produces an unintentional negative effect.In the second part, “Critical Ethics, Antihegemonic Validity, and the Praxis of Liberation,” the author lays out the other three principles that configure the ethics of liberation. First is the “ethical-critical principle,” a structurally central component and part of the negativity of the victims. Following the reflections of Karl Marx, critical theory, and Emmanuel Levinas, Dussel postulates the creation of a new ethical system based upon a universal rationality of liberation that has as a reference point the alterity and exteriority of the victim. Second, the “principle of validity” addresses the necessity and possibility of a situation of intersubjective consensus to conform to this new ethics. Following the thinking of Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch, the author rehabilitates the role of utopia in ethical and social projects. The last principle, the “liberation principle,” is the moment when the victims raise themselves to a radical transformation of the system, or, in other words, when they leave the situation of material negativity in which they find themselves. In this regard, the author addresses a prickly subject for contemporary political philosophy: violence. While the author suggests that we are not naive to advocate violence, he notes that it exists as an unavoidable resource with which you always have victims. The author also retakes the most valuable aspect of Marxist philosophical thought by approaching the question of the constitution of subjects, of historical actors who, in their praxis, envision building a just, free, and democratic society.Finally, the validity and coherence of the ethical material proposed by the author reveal themselves obviously, since it takes as its starting point the pain of the bodily reality of the victims in order to rebuke the destructive logic of this “actually existing modernity.” In this sense, I maintain that Ethics of Liberation marks an important point not only in the trajectory of this Argentine philosopher but also in the development of the history of contemporary thought. For this, I consider the publication and diffusion of this monumental work in the English-speaking world important.

Psychology, the psychological, and critical praxis: A phenomenologist reads Frantz Fanon

This article situates the role of psychological investigations in analyses of social problems like colonialism and racism, via a phenomenological reading of the writings of Frantz Fanon. Emerging scholarship on Fanon’s use of psychology is beginning to elucidate how his style of analysis enables an interweaving of psychological insights with sociopolitical ones. The present paper builds on this research by explicating the essential moments of Fanon’s approach. Fanonian investigations are shown to be characterized by a focus on: experience, concrete examples, evidence, meaning, unprejudiced seeing from multiple perspectives, delineation of essential structure, and critical and liberating praxis. Fanon is then compared to other theorists operating at the nexus of psychology and society in order to delineate an overall structure of psychopolitical investigations. Overall, the paper attempts to sketch ways in which psychology can be advanced as a science and praxis of human liberation.