Multidisciplinary Inquiry Research Articles

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The Career and Work of Madelyn Gutwirth / 19 associations, not only between theater and music but between art and political agenda, political agenda and conscious or unconscious primitive sexual fears and wishes, roiling libido and science, public policy, and personal struggles, all of which lead back to the eighteenth century's most gripping literature. I am deeply grateful for the original, foundational understanding of the eighteenth century that Madelyn has brought us in her many writings, as I am for the gift of her friendship. RESPONSE MADELYN GUTWIRTH I simply can't convey adequately my astonishment at the news that The Women's Caucus had decided to devote a session to my career. It's something I'd certainly never dreamed of, out there in my Philadelphia suburb. Fortunately, I've gotten used to the idea. By now I've entered into a phase of distinct cheerfulness over having lived into the 21 st century and my 79th year, beyond a number of equally meritorious colleagues, so as to see it happen. So I thank the Women's Caucus and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture heartily for this honor. I'm especially grateful to the distinguished contributors to this tribute, not merely for their overgenerous remarks. I deeply admire each one of them for her curiosity, incisiveness, independence, and breadth as a scholar, as well as for her willingness to share in this rite. Each of them has elaborated so searchingly and rewardingly on various aspects of my work that even I understand it far better than before. I'm grateful to each of them for such flattering attentiveness. I want particularly to acknowledge my debts to those with whom I've collaborated fruitfully over the years: Karyna Szmurlo, my companion in furthering Staël Studies on this continent, for her astute, persistent, and devoted efforts; Carol Blum, for inviting me to share in teaching the wonderful NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers, "Women, Marriage, Sex, and Reproduction in Eighteenth-Century France: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry" we held at Stony Brook in 1996; and Avriel Goldberger, my beloved graduate school friend, who took on her fine translations into English of Staël 's Delphine, Corinne, and Dix-années d'exil, in part out of sisterly solidarity. When I joined ASECS in the 1970 's, there simply was no such organism as the Women's Caucus. In speaking to several age cohorts younger than myself, I feel a need to specify why it was thought necessary to form one. What was then the situation, for both eighteenth-century scholarship on women, or for 20 / GUTWIRTH women scholars? In those days, this society, though some of its male members might or might not be matey with minority members of the opposite sex, retained very much the aura of a men's club, sometimes gracious, sometimes distinctly cool, to women interlopers. The Age of Reason, it was felt, was serious and philosophical; scholarly in an Altgermanisch, nineteenth-century mode, not totally unsuitable for an occasional female scholar, but she would have to maintain a jocular mien and, certainly not dream of upsetting established canonic saws, categories, or practices. A sample of this last, especially discomfiting to me today, is my lack of success when petitioning for special sessions: first, for one to explore reactions to Carol Blum's groundbreaking Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue; and then, after Gloria Flaherty's premature death, for a session celebrating the career of this former president of ASECS. Both were esteemed by program committees to be "out of bounds." Already in 1967 the second twentieth-century feminist wave had begun to bathe the feet of ASECS. Marlene LeGates, for example, published an article entitled "The Cult of Womanhood in Eighteenth-Century Thought" in Eighteenth-Century Studies that year. And of course some female colleagues more than held their own. They might occasionally even preside over it, as did Patricia Spacks, or Gita May. But they knew themselves to be exceptions. Few members, particularly among women, specialized on women writers, artists, or thinkers, or on gender issues. By 1974, however, the women's movement had blown such wind into our sails that a whole new cohort of...

Rushdie in Wonderland: Fairytaleness in Salman Rushdie's Fiction (review)

Rushdie Wonderland: Fairytaleness Salman Rushdie's Fiction. By Justyna Deszcz. European University Studies: Series 14: Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature, vol. 405. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2004. 199 pp. Readers on the lookout for further evidence of academic jargon should pause before condemning Justyna Deszcz's fairytaleness. As the author notes, in Polish the term 'basniowosc' is widely (187n2), however awkward it may sound translation. While it may not attain such wide acceptance English, it is a useful means by which to approach the work of Salman Rushdie, to say nothing of several of his contemporary fabulators. The image of the fairy tale held today by many adult readers Western Europe and North America is due no small part to the pioneering fictions of Rushdie and his contemporaries and to the flood of versions and adaptations that have followed. These fictions sought variously to critique and to extend fairy-tale traditions; more intangibly, they were steeped the narrative environment of the fairy tale, an environment markedly different from that of the novel or short story. As such, they are quintessential late-twentieth-century expressions of fairytaleness, a conglomerate of narrative features that the fictions themselves worked to redefine. A respectable number of years have passed since the publication of the key texts of this extraordinarily energetic period of literary history-texts, to cite only English-language fictions, including Pricksongs and Descants (1969), Lady Oracle (1976), The Bloody Chamber and Other Stones (1979), and, of course, Midnight's Children (1981). To treat such work as a matter of literary history is necessarily to suggest a degree of unanimity on matters of interpretation and evaluation; whether or not this is the case, it is certainly true that the early work of Rushdie and his contemporaries ran alongside two other key projects of reformulation: fairy-tale studies, where a large number of bibliographic, sociohistorical, and literary analyses established, or reestablished, a vibrant field of multidisciplinary inquiry; and, more broadly, the critical-theoretical realm, where the nebulous project of postmodernism-a project devoted part to the idea of nebulousness and, indeed, the idea of projects-sought nothing less than a rethinking of the conceptual groundings of humanism and the Enlightenment. Rushdie's work is a relation of symbiosis with these critical contexts, which is one reason why the former has garnered such attention. It has even been argued that some of the key early coordinates of that third project of reformulation contemporaneous with the fictions under discussion-postcolonial studies-were influenced no small part by the fictions themselves. Justyna Deszcz stays resolutely within the realm of this critical context. Her study is neatly divided into two, dealing the first half with postmodernism and the second with postcolonialism. That said, the most impressive feature of the book is its willingness to stretch beyond the familiar fictions, to encompass more recent works such as the novels The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground beneath Her Feet, and Fury and the story collection East, West. Several commentators the popular press have been less than enthusiastic their reception of these later works, suggesting a dimming of the author's talents. The singular exuberance of Rushdie's aesthetic-if we can talk of such a thing, which I think we can-was always going to run the risk, some circles, of falling foul of its own success, and it is thus particularly useful to have a study that establishes a degree of continuity across a significant body of work. Deszcz situates her study in counterpoint to purely post-colonial or post-modern readings (10), although her findings fall squarely within the accepted range of these two areas. The book begins with a discussion of postmodern conceptions of the fairy tale, the course of which Deszcz allies herself clearly and extensively with a performative poetics of the fairy tale as elaborated the work of Cristina Bacchilega. …

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A View from London and Bangor: Encouragement for Multi-Disciplinary Enquiry

A View from London and Bangor: Encouragement for Multi-Disciplinary Enquiry

Timing of Pubertal Maturation in Girls: An Integrated Life History Approach.

Life history theory provides a metatheoretical framework for the study of pubertal timing from an evolutionary-developmental perspective. The current article reviews 5 middle-level theories--energetics theory, stress-suppression theory, psychosocial acceleration theory, paternal investment theory, and child development theory--each of which applies the basic assumptions of life history theory to the question of environmental influences on timing of puberty in girls. These theories converge in their conceptualization of pubertal timing as responsive to ecological conditions but diverge in their conceptualization of (a) the nature, extent, and direction of environmental influences and (b) the effects of pubertal timing on other reproductive variables. Competing hypotheses derived from the 5 perspectives are evaluated. An extension of W. T. Boyce and B. J. Ellis's (in press) theory of stress reactivity is proposed to account for both inhibiting and accelerating effects of psychosocial stress on timing of pubertal development. This review highlights the multiplicity of (often unrecognized) perspectives guiding research, raises challenges to virtually all of these, and presents an alternative framework in an effort to move research forward in this arena of multidisciplinary inquiry.

Theorizing Political Psychology: Doing Integrative Social Science Under the Condition of Postmodernity

The field of political psychology, like the social sciences more generally, is being challenged. New theoretical direction is being demanded from within and a greater epistemological sophistication and ethical relevance is being demanded from without. In response, an outline for a reconstructed political psychology is offered here. To begin, a theoretical framework for a truly integrative political psychology is sketched. In the attempt to transcend the reductionist quality of cross‐disciplinary or multidisciplinary inquiry, the theoretical approach offered here emphasizes the dually structured quality of social life as the singular product of both organizing social structures and defining discourse communities on the one hand and motivated, thinking individuals on the other. To further this theoretical effort, meta‐theoretical considerations are addressed. The modernist‐postmodernist debate regarding the status of truth and value is used as a point of departure for constructing the epistemological foundation for political psychology. In this light, structural pragmatic guidelines for theory construction, empirical research and normative inquiry are presented. While the focus remains on political psychology in particular, it is assumed that the criticisms of present research and the suggestions for future inquiry apply to the social sciences more generally.

The Economics of Transnational Living

Migrants’ long-distance economic relations with their homelands have been the subject of an extensive, albeit fragmented, multidisciplinary inquiry. Most existing studies have been primarily concerned with the north-south flow of monetary remittances that migrants send to their homelands. Using a transnational perspective informed by economic sociology tenets, this article argues that this north-south, monetary-centered approach is too limited, for it fails to heed the multiple macroeconomic effects of migrants’ transnational economic and noneconomic connections and, thus, underestimates migrants’ agency and their influence at the global level. Using the concept of transnational living, the study presents new vistas of transnational migration that question accepted notions about the relationship between labor mobility and capital mobility.

The origin of acquired immune deficiency syndrome: Can science afford to ignore it?

There is a crisis of public faith in science and scientists. Recent research shows concern over scientific ethics, transparency and who benefits from research and development, exemplified in the genetically modified organism debate. Scientific discussion of the polio vaccine hypothesis for the origin of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been systematically suppressed for more than 12 years. The author calls for an international multidisciplinary inquiry into the origin of AIDS, arguing it is essential to human health, prevention of new pandemics, and to protect the integrity of science in the eyes of the public.

Grilles d'analyse de l'élite économique post-soviétique

A threefold change (economic reform, democratization and a redefinition of the state's role) characterizes the post-Soviet transition. The post-Soviet economic elite should be studied by using various approaches proposed by economists, political scientists and sociologists. The one best suited to current conditions is the institutional approach, which considers the elite to be made up of individuals holding strategic positions in the country's major economic organizations. This approach needs to be completed with "qualitative" analyses (for example, in terms of a "social project") if we are to better understand actors' strategies in the post-Soviet economy, which is paradoxically both fluid and rigid. Ultimately, a multidisciplinary inquiry is needed, since the subject of the post-Soviet economic elite cannot be separated from the political, economic and institutional processes now under way in the ex-USSR and in most of its former satellites.

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article:The Future of Play Theory: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry into the Contributions of Brian Sutton‐Smith. Edited by Anthony D. Peligrini.Mothers, Babies, and Cocaine: The Role of Toxins in Development. Edited by M. Lewis & M. Bendersky.Children with Language Impairments: An Introduction. By Morag A. Donaldson.Race, Evolution, and Behaviour: A Life History Perspective. By J. Philippe Rushton.Children's Mental Health Services. Edited by Leonard Bickman & Debra J. Rog.Interaction in Cooperative Groups. Edited by Rachel Hertz‐Lazarowitz & Norman Miller.Gestalt Psychology and the Cognitive Revolution. By David J. Murray.Levels of Cognitive Development. By Tracy S. KendlerPhonological Development—The Origins of Language in the Child. By Marilyn May Vihman.Trouble Talking. A Guide for the Parents of Children with Speech and Language Difficulties. By J. Law & J. Elias.Emotional Development. By L. A. Sroufe.The Computational Infant. By Julie C. Rutkowska.Children Talk about the Mind. By K. Bartsch & H. M. Wellman.Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology. By Peter Carruthers.Latent Variables Analysis: Applications for Developmental Research. Edited by A. Von Eye & C. C. Clogg.Changing Times: Challenges to Identity. 12‐year‐olds in Belfast 1981 and 1992. By Jean Whyte.Children's Numbers. By Catherine Sophian

Establishing a Biostatistical Core Unit in a Clinical Research Center

Abstract We have recently had the rare opportunity to open the door on a Biostatistical Core Unit within a Mental Health Clinical Research Center specializing in the multidisciplinary inquiry of schizophrenia. Based on the literature, our previous consulting experience, and the experience of colleagues, we implemented policies and procedures that avoided common problems facing consulting organizations and maximized effective collaboration between researchers and statisticians. This is an example of the application of policies, which involved assigning high priority to education, making ourselves available for consultation and collaboration, and developing an environment that fostered concordant research.

The Wharram Research Project: Results to 1983

CONTINUING ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION of the church, manor house, parsonage and peasant homes of a deserted medieval village has widened into a multidisciplinary enquiry into the evolution of the total landscape of the two parishes bearing the name of Wharram which once contained six villages, now reduced to two. The microtopography of the medieval site is related to its antecedents, and the post-desertion settlement pattern to renewed arable farming on the Wolds without the re-creation of villages.

Migrations, société et développement en pays Mossi

G. Sautter—Migrations, Society, and Development in Mosiland. A synthetic approach of Mosi migratory movements based upon a multidisciplinary enquiry conducted by the Office for Scientific and Technical Research Overseas (ORSTOM) between 1971 and 1975. The phenomenon is especially complex as it involves internai displacements (towards cities or rural areas where land is still available) and external ones (to foreign countries, chiefly the Ivory Coast). Demographie factors are ail-important yet cannot be isolated from traits pertaining to the social structure such as the kinship System and the relationships between generations. A number of previous stereotypes, concerning, for instance, bridewealth and financial support of the migrants' families, have been proven false. In fact, internai migrations toward 'free' land may well prove more significant, in a develop-mental perspective, than external ones. This confronts the Upper Volta govern-ment with a choice of policy-—between spontaneous and organized settlements— which remains to be decided upon.