Working Lifetime Research Articles

Can We Effectively Allocate Time for Work and Life and Be Happy? The Empirical Evidence from Self-Employed Persons in Lithuania

There is not enough attention paid to the analysis of time allocation in the context of happiness. Perhaps it is because happiness economics is an expanding interdisciplinary field. So, recommendations for self-employed persons in Lithuania how daily time should be effectively allocated for life (sleep, personal care, study, housework, family care, leisure, travel and other activities) and work in order to be happy still remain an open question. In this paper the specific recommendations about it are provided for that case. So, this paper analyses two phenomena, i.e. time allocation and happiness. The main attention is given to self-employed persons in Lithuania during 2019 years. Data collection (time diary, survey, interview) and optimization methods are used to identify how daily time should be effectively allocated for two main areas (work and life) in order for self-employed persons to be happy. Having mathematical modeling of time allocation and happiness accomplished, it has been found that 36.1% of day time should be allocated for work and the rest time of the day (63.9%) should be allocated for life. The person’s levels of job satisfaction, life satisfaction and happiness should be equal to 9 points (on a ten-point scale). In this case, monthly net income would be 1001 euros and desirable monthly net income 1101 euros. The number of children should be two. The scientific and practical uniqueness of this article lies in the creation of a mathematical model that can determine how to effectively allocate work time and life time in order for a person to be happy. Although the mathematical model constructed in this paper is based on Lithuanian data, it is not country specific.

A pioneer of hormonal contraception: Joseph W. Goldzieher.

On 19 July, 2024, at the age of almost 105 years, Joseph W. Goldzieher, the last survivor of the group of pioneers who created oral contraception, peacefully passed away. Here we briefly reconstruct the salient points in his long, productive life, and highlight his achievements in the development of hormonal contraception. His work is indissolubly enshrined in the complex history of hormonal contraception, from the first, fundamental observations, to the first clinical trials, both in the form of combined oestrogen-progestin oral pills and long-acting injectable contraceptives. After Pincus and his Group created an oral contraceptive containing an oestrogen and a progestin, Goldzieher was the second international scientist to conduct clinical trials of the new modality. He teamed-up with investigators in Mexico creating a fruitful, long-lasting collaboration. They produced evidence that ovulation inhibition could be achieved with all the progestins used at the time. Of importance, he was among the first to explore the possibility of using oestrogens to block ovulation, and developed the concept of sequential contraception. For all this lifetime of work, we believe he deserves to be named a 'giant in reproductive endocrinology'.

Regulations of Thermal Expansion Coefficients of Yb1−xAlxTaO4 for Environmental Barrier Coatings Applications

Environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) are widely used to protect ceramic matrix composites (CMCs, SiCf/SiC, and Al2O3f/Al2O3), and they should have low thermal expansion coefficients (TECs) matching the CMCs and excellent mechanical properties to prolong their lifetime. Current EBC materials have disadvantages of phase transitions and insufficient mechanical properties, which affect their working temperatures and lifetime. It is necessary to develop new oxide EBCs. Ytterbium tantalate (YbTaO4) is a stable and novel EBC material, and we have improved the mechanical properties and TECs of Yb1−xAlxTaO4 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5) ceramics by replacing Yb with Al. XRD, SEM, and EDS are used to verify the crystal and microstructures, and nano-indentation is used to measure the modulus and hardness when changes in TECs are measured within a thermal expansion device. The results show that the phase structure of Yb1−xAlxTaO4 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5) is stable at 25–1400 °C within air atmosphere, and their high-temperature TECs (6.4–8.9 × 10−6 K−1, 1400 °C) are effectively regulated by introductions of different contents of Al, which enlarge their engineering applications for SiCf/SiC and Al2O3f/Al2O3 CMCs. The evolutions of TECs are analyzed from structural characteristics and phase compositions, and the increased TECs make Yb1−xAlxTaO4 potential EBCs for Al2O3 matrixes. Due to the high bonding strength of Al–O bonds, hardness, as well as Young’s modulus, are enhanced with the increasing Al content, with Yb1−xAlxTaO4 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5) having a nano-hardness of 3.7–12.8 GPa and a Young’s modulus of 100.9–236.6 GPa. The TECs of YbTaO4 are successfully regulated to expand their applications, and they match those of Al2O3 and SiC matrixes, as well as displaying improved mechanical properties. This work promotes applications of YbTaO4 as potential EBCs and provides a new way to regulate the TECs of tantalates.

Review on a real time Green Enviro Solar Systems for On-grid and Off-grid Applications with AI and IoT Technologies

Abstract: Solar photovoltaic (PV) plants must be constantly protected and supervised to keep them safe and reliable during their working lifetime. Incorporating smart technological equipment including artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) for remote sensing, fault detection and diagnosing PV plants can help these plants achieve peak efficiency. While renewable energy appears to be thriving globally, its intermittent nature creates a need to develop solutions for ensuring grid stability.The output of solar panels is influenced by a variety of environmental factors such as the amount of solar radiation, proportion of shadow, weather conditions and so on. Constantly monitoring these variables, particularly for off-grid and remote solar energy plants is a tedious task.

African time travellers: What can we learn from 500 years of written accounts?

AbstractIn this paper we study 500 years of African economic history using traveller accounts. We systematically collected 2464 unique documents, of which 855 pass language and rigorous data quality requirements. Our final corpus of texts contains more than 230 000 pages. Analysing such a corpus is an insurmountable task for traditional historians and would probably take a lifetime's work. Applying modern day computational linguistic techniques such as a structural topic model approach (STM) in combination with domain knowledge of African economic history, we analyse how first‐hand accounts (topics) evolve across space and time. Apart from obvious accounts of climate, geography, and zoology, we find topics around imperialism, diplomacy, conflict, trade/commerce, health/medicine, evangelization, and many more topics of interest to scholarship. We illustrate how this novel database and text analysis can be employed in three applications (1) What views are introduced by travellers as a result of their occupational background? (2) Did the adoption of quinine as treatment and prophylaxis against malaria facilitate European expansion into Africa? (3) When and how did the diffusion of New World crops alter the African economic landscape?

Tough and Water-Resistant Bioelastomers with Active-Controllable Degradation Rates.

Biodegradable electronic devices have gained significant traction in modern medical applications. These devices are generally desired to have a long enough working lifetime for stable operation and allow for active control over their degradation rates after usage. However, current biodegradable materials used as encapsulations or substrates for these devices are challenging to meet the two requirements due to the constraints of inadequate water resistance, poor mechanical properties, and passive degradation characteristics. Herein, we develop a novel biodegradable elastomer named POC-SS-Res by introducing disulfide linkage and resveratrol (Res) into poly(1,8-octanediol-co-citrate) (POC). Compared to POC, POC-SS-Res exhibits good water resistance and excellent mechanical properties in PBS, providing effective protection for devices. At the same time, POC-SS-Res offers the unique advantage of an active-controllable degradation rate, and its degradation products express low biotoxicity. Good biocompatibility of POC-SS-Res is also demonstrated. Bioelectronic components encapsulated with POC-SS-Res have an obvious prolongation of working lifetime in PBS compared to that encapsulated with POC, and its degradation rate can be actively controlled by the addition of glutathione (GSH).

Pulsating heat pipes filled with acetone and water under radial rotation conditions: Heat transfer performance and semi-empirical correlation

A significant amount of heat can be generated during the operation of rotary machinery, which degrades its working performance and lifetime. It has been proven that, under radial rotation conditions, pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) can operate with good thermal performance. PHPs have excellent potential for application in rotary machinery, owing to their enhanced heat transfer and material duration. Experimental studies on radially rotating PHPs remain scarce, and further in-depth physical understanding is required to achieve a better thermal design for practical configurations. In this study, the effects of centrifugal acceleration and heat flux on the heat transport in radially rotating PHPs were investigated in detail. The results demonstrate that centrifugal acceleration can promote the circular motion of chains of liquid plugs and vapor slugs with an improvement in thermal performance, particularly above a given heat flux threshold and a critical value of the rotation velocity. In addition, by considering the key influencing parameters, a semi-empirical correlation of dimensionless numbers was built to estimate the heat transport. Additionally, dimensionless numbers, i.e., Weber number, temperature number (ΔT/Tev), and a newly-defined number (Ψ1, represents the influence of heat flux, surface tension and centrifugal acceleration), significantly impact the thermal performance.

Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy: Phillip Atiba Solomon.

This award honors a psychologist who has made a distinguished empirical and/or theoretical contribution to research in public policy, either through a single extraordinary achievement or a lifetime of work. "Phillip Atiba Solomon's work has had a transformative impact on research, practice, and policy related to public safety and policing. His scholarship, largely centered on racial and other forms of social bias in policing, is highly innovative and scientifically rigorous with timely and direct implications for policy and practice. Dr. Solomon displays a unique talent for integrating diverse literature in ways that contribute substantially to theory and policy. Moreover, he has directly demonstrated his deep commitment to policy rooted in behavioral science evidence and social justice through his cofounding of the Center for Policing Equity (CPE). CPE is dedicated to eradicating racism in public safety and policing, emphasizing evidence-based research and community-centered approaches." (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy.

The Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy is given to a psychologist who has made a distinguished empirical and/or theoretical contribution to research in public policy, either through a single extraordinary achievement or a lifetime of work. This contribution may consist of such factors as research leading others to view specific national policies differently; research demonstrating the importance of the application of psychological methods and theory to public policy; or research clarifying the ways in which scientific knowledge of human behavior informs public policy. The 2023 recipients of the APA Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest were selected by the 2022 Committee on Psychology in the Public Interest Awards. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Women, education and development: The experience of a female “scholar-doer”

This article reviews the experience of a lifetime of working in the field of education and development. It covers encountering and researching gender bias and discrimination in education, education and development in applying research to World Bank operational practice, the inevitable move from research to management, teaching and other post retirement activities, and what I have learned that might be relevant to a new generation of "scholar-doers"

In Memoriam and Unedited Email from Robert Klein

ABSTRACT This memoriam is written in memory of Robert H. Klein, Ph.D., ABPP, CGP, AGPA- DLF, who passed away this year, 2023, after contributing a lifetime of work to the field of group psychotherapy. It reviews the contributions that he made to group theory and treatment and his service to the American Group Psychotherapy Association. It concludes with an unedited email describing his thoughts about group therapy and trauma work, where he details 20 principles that group therapists should consider as they embrace group treatment to work with trauma survivors.

Thermal and Optical Analysis of Quantum-Dot-Converted White LEDs in Harsh Environments

Quantum-dot-converted white LEDs (QD-WLEDs) are promising in both lighting and display applications owing to their high luminous efficiency (LE) and high color-rendering index (CRI). However, their working lifetime is severely limited by the poor reliability of QDs and the LED package. In this work, the variation in photothermal parameters in QD-WLEDs during aging was investigated, and the effect of QDs and the LED package on the optical performance of QD-WLEDs was analyzed. First, the optical properties of phosphor–silicone, QD–silicone, and silicone were measured during the 524 h aging process at 80 °C and 100 °C, respectively. QD-WLEDs with high optical performance were packaged and aged under the same conditions to investigate the variation in their optical parameters and analyze the trends of their CRIs and correlated color temperatures (CCTs). According to the experimental results and the calculation models of the spectra, it was found that the changes in optical parameters are mainly caused by the degradation of QDs, and the aging of QDs has different effects on the CRI and CCT. The analysis of the energy-transfer process shows that the decrease in luminous flux of QD-WLEDs during the aging process is mainly caused by the aging of silicone. Based on optical and thermal analysis, this study proposed different optimization strategies for optical quality and lifetime in the LED design process.

Underwater wireless sensor network-based multihop data transmission using hybrid cat cheetah optimization algorithm

For the conservation and sustainable use of the oceanic environment, monitoring of underwater regions is ineluctable and is effectuated with the aid of an underwater wireless sensor network. It is accoutered with smart equipment, vehicles and sensors and utilized for the transmission of acquired data from the monitoring region and forwarded to the sink nodes (SN) where the data are retrieved. Moreover, data transmission from sensor nodes to SN is complicated by the aquatic environment's inherent complexities. To surpass those issues, the work in this article focusesto propose a Hybrid Cat Cheetah optimization algorithm (HC2OA) that purveys the energy efficient clustering based routing. The network is then partitioned into numerous clusters, each of which is led by a cluster head (CH) and comprised of many sub-clusters (CM). Based on the factors such as distance and residual energy the CH selection is optimized and collects data from the respective CMs and forwarded to the SN with a multi-hop transmission approach. The proposed HC2OA chooses the optimized multi-hop route from the CH to SN. Thus mitigates the complexities over multi-hop routing and CH selection. Simulations are effectuated in the NS2 simulator and analyzed the performance. The results of the study show that the proposed work has significant advantages over state-of-the-art works in terms of network lifetime, packet delivery ratio, and energy consumption. The energy consumption of the proposed work is 0.2 J with a packet delivery ratio is 95%.The network life time of proposed work, with respect to the coverage area around 14 km is approximately 60 h.

The contribution of social cognitive theory to school bullying research and practice

ABSTRACT This tribute to Albert Bandura shows how his lifetime of work on Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) has contributed to a greater understanding of school bullying. Managing children and adolescents’ problematic behavior is a major challenge for schools with reducing bullying a priority. Here, the principles of SCT relevant to school bullying are outlined within the triadic reciprocal model proposed by Bandura. In this model, bullying behavior is determined by the reciprocal interaction between person (outcome expectations, moral disengagement, self-efficacy) and environment/social factors (modeling, enactive experience, and direct tuition) transmitted by the major sources of influence: peers, parents, teachers, and the media. Application of this theory in anti-bullying programs underscores the conceptual importance of considering person and environment/social factors that are amenable to change. Future directions for intervention programs are elaborated.

GP education posts for research.

Almost every patient and every healthcare condition are seen within primary care, but research is not yet embedded in general practice in the same way it is in secondary care. There is no well-defined pathway for a career combining research delivery and active clinical general practice. In Wessex, we set out to design a career pathway for the clinically active GP that could sustain research involvement throughout their working lifetime and underpin research activity in primary care. A lead for education on research was established, in 2021, to approach relevant organisations for funding, accreditation, and design of educational posts for research delivery in primary care. Health Education England is currently looking to fund additional placements prior to completion of GP training. NIHR CRN Wessex also identified funding for posts after completion of training. The authors worked with the Southampton GP Education Unit who applied for and achieved the first national recognition of 15-month research placements to count towards completion of GP vocational training. A GP career pathway was designed starting with these posts and followed by GP Research fellow posts, which provide ongoing sessional research work at any stage of a clinical GP career. National recognition for education on research has been achieved and a career pathway for GPs to train in and then work in research has been established. This will help embed research expertise and interest within primary care. This should increase research delivery and hence a cycle of increased research funding for further similar posts.

Making History, Making Worlds

Making History, Making Worlds Robin D. G. Kelley (bio) In a way, the obsessions that drove me into and then rapidly away from drama were those most beautifully summarized in a few thoughts of Marx: by mixing our labor with the earth, we change the external world and thereby change our own nature. That's what drama is; that's what geography is: making history, making worlds. —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "What Is to Be Done" (2022) Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Abolition Geography: Essays towards Liberation contains many definitions of abolition, all of which are incisive, insightful, profound, and equally valuable. They represent an accretion of ideas produced from a lifetime of intellectual work and organized struggle, flashes of which appear in three decades of collected writing. In an interview for the Intercept not included in the book but quoted in the introduction by its editors, Brenna Bhandar and Alberto Toscano, Gilmore insists, "Abolition has to be 'green.' It has to take seriously the problem of environmental harm, environmental racism, and environmental degradation. To be 'green' it has to be 'red.' It has to figure out ways to generalize the resources needed for well-being for the most vulnerable people in our community, which then will extend to all people. And to do that, to be "green" and "red," it has to be international."1 A month after the Intercept published this interview, Gilmore further elaborated on the meaning of abolition in an email to me: "I think really hard about defining abolition. To me, it's an elaboration (not novel but distinctive) of small-c communism, without a party though I wish we had party discipline. … I'm a Leninist in the sense that I do believe we can prevail with a combination of "the Soviets plus electricity." What is that 100 years on? For one thing, its groupings wherever they struggle fighting to redistribute material and symbolic resources." In other words, abolition begins and ends with "groupings" of people struggling to end the stranglehold of racial capitalism on the earth and all of its life forms, and build a sustainable, equitable, and ethical world for all. Building is the keyword. Abolition is less an act of demolition than a construction project. It is creative creation, the boundless and boundary-less struggle to make our collective lives better, what she calls "life in rehearsal." As she told Clement Petitjean in an interview: "Abolition is: figuring out how to work with people [End Page 383] to make something rather than figuring out how to erase something … Abolition is a theory of change, it's a theory of social life. It's about making things."3 To illustrate her point, she turns to W. E. B. Du Bois's classic Black Reconstruction in America (1935), which not only showed "how slavery ended through the actions and organized activity of the slaves" but that the legal abolition of slavery "doesn't tell you anything about the next day, what the next day, and days thereafter, looked like during the revolutionary period of radical Reconstruction." In other words, freedom was not an event, nor was it "given." It had to be made. Her invocation of Black Reconstruction was very deliberate. It is the story of groupings of people once regarded as chattel "making history, making worlds," transforming property relations, organizing to redistribute material and symbolic resources, and changing themselves in the process. Drama, indeed. Du Bois called it "the most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history. … the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen."4 He defined their vision and practice of freedom as "abolition democracy," the determined struggle to destroy all vestiges of slavery and rebuild the country into the democracy it never was. Their vision derived not from Marx or Engels but from the Old Testament idea of Jubilee. Its principles are expressed in Leviticus chapter 25 and Isaiah 61, which calls for the cancellation of debts, restitution of land, freeing of all slaves, which entails "to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those in prison." Jubilee marked a new beginning, a clearing intended for building the new...

The Story of Jesus: A Mosaic by Roy A. Harrisville

Reviewed by: The Story of Jesus: A Mosaic by Roy A. Harrisville Troy M. Troftgruben The Story of Jesus: A Mosaic. By Roy A. Harrisville. Foreword by Mark C. Mattes. Eugene, Oregon: Resource, 2020. xx + 229 pp. To Lutheran scholars, Roy A. Harrisville needs no introduction. Professor Emeritus at Luther Seminary and author of many books, Harrisville's scholarly career has been devoted not only to New Testament interpretation in general, but also to the significance of Jesus more specifically. He has particularly reflected on the advantages and limitations of scientific methods such as the historical-critical method for arriving at clearer understandings of Jesus of Nazareth. He culminates a lifetime of work in a concise portrait of Jesus—a "mosaic"—in a book that is at once biographical, theological, confessional, and poetic. Harrisville writes this book because "despite the decline … of mainline Christian denominations, the fascination with Jesus of Nazareth is still existent, particularly among the youth" (xvii). The book takes its cues from the four New Testament Gospels, since Harrisville finds their witness credible, despite the challenges of skeptics. After the Introduction, the book has five parts, four of which progress chronologically through Jesus' life: Beginnings, Beginnings of Jesus' Ministry, Schooling the Disciples, The Passion, and Summary. In each section, Harrisville discusses the significance of Jesus' ministry as it is collectively portrayed in the New Testament Gospels. In these discussions, Harrisville routinely begins with traditions deemed [End Page 193] the earliest, making Mark's Gospel the most consistent starting point. But the book considers traditions from other Evangelists no less, and without diminishing their contributions. Throughout, Harrisville demonstrates broad awareness of parallels from Jewish and Greco-Roman literature, enriching the discussion. Although he surveys the gamut of Jesus material in the Gospels, the areas most substantively discussed are miracles (35–52), parables (53–73), conflict with religious leaders and others (79–110), discipleship matters (117–39), and the Passion narrative (149–89). The book reads like a hybrid that is part New Testament commentary, part historical-critical reconstruction, and part theological assessment or confession of faith. A regular dialogue partner, it seems, are historical-critical assessments that are more confident in scientific reconstruction and skeptical of the miraculous. An example is the section on miracles (35–52), which concludes: "We are left with the alternative that the exorcisms are to be set down to the legendary or mythical, or are to be believed as having actually occurred" (34). The book is more positivist regarding what may be known about the "inner life" or "psychic states" of Jesus, for which Harrisville finds Mark's Gospel the richest in material (143–48). The book ends with "A Final Reflection on the Resurrection of Jesus" (200–03), in which Harrisville incorporates insights from authors as varied as Martin Luther, William Blake, and C.S. Lewis. Regarding the resurrection, Harrisville confesses: "Human thought is a mendicant, a beggar. Its object does not need me to be, to be there; it is a given, a gift, an act of grace" (202). This book envisions an audience of college or seminary readers (xiii). Certainly, the more familiar readers are with New Testament scholarship from the last century, the richer the book will be. Even so, invested novices will find this book enlightening and thought-provoking, as well as enjoyable due to the turns of phrases playfully inserted throughout (for example, "The narrative of Jesus' stilling the storm… may appear to some as absurd as a purple cow" 45). Although minor misspellings occur, they do not diminish the clarity and profundity of the book's substance. The Story of Jesus is a concise compendium of Harrisville's teaching, historical-critical reflection, and theological discernment about the significance of Jesus [End Page 194] for today. It is at once enjoyable and profoundly instructive, from someone who has greatly influenced the conversations of New Testament theology to this day. Troy M. Troftgruben Wartburg Theological Seminary Dubuque, Iowa Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Effects of B/C ratio on the structural and mechanical properties of TiBCN coating deposited by PACVD

TiBCN coating is known as a hard, self-lubricant and wear resistant coating which can be applied on industrial tools to increase their working life time under severe wear conditions. In this paper, TiBCN coatings with different B/C ratios were applied on H13 steel using plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition from BBr3, TiCl4, CH4, N2 and H2 reactants at 500 °C. The results signified that the introduction of B and C elements to TiN changed its preferred crystalline orientation from (200) to (111) and decreased crystal size from 12 to 9 nm as a result of the formation of amorphous phases which constrain grain growth. The addition of B and C altered the coating's nucleation and growth mechanisms and generated a strong surface etching agent of HBr which significantly changed surface morphology and roughness. Increasing flow ratio of CH4 to BBr3 from 0.125 to 0.25 influenced the coating's mechanical properties and increased coating's hardness from 18.1 to 23.2 GPa and Young's modulus from 296 to 334.7 GPa. Rising coating's C content remarkably improved its nano-wear resistance and the coating with the highest C content exhibited a wear volume of 1*10−19 m3 which was about 63% lower than that of TiN coating.

Arrhythmias by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman

Reviewed by: Arrhythmias by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman Misha Klein ANGELINA MUÑIZ-HUBERMAN Arrhythmias Trans. D. P Snyder. Houston. Literal Publishing / Hablemos Escritoras. 2022. 167 pages. IN TITLING HER COLLECTION of essays Arrhythmias, Mexican poet, novelist, and essayist Angelina Muñiz-Huberman signals to the reader that this collection of thirty-two essays is highly irregular. The theme of arrythmias pulses through these essays, both explicitly in the repetition of the word itself throughout the book and implicitly in the varying lengths and modes of these musings. Recently inducted into the prestigious Mexican Academy of Language (where she now occupies the seventh chair of the exclusive thirty-six-chair literary society), the eighty-six-year-old Muñiz-Huberman is professor of medieval and comparative literature at the renowned Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City. Muñiz-Huberman has also just received an honorary doctorate from UNAM in recognition of her prolific lifetime of work, which includes fifty books of poetry, essays, novels, and translations. The essays in this volume hint at her own early peripatetic life, a life that paralleled, intersected, and shadowed the lives of philosophical and literary giants of the twentieth century, a century punctuated (arrhythmically) by wars and exiles that demarcated and, in many cases, defined the lives of those who lived and died along the way. Muñiz-Huberman's own parents fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and she was born at the very end of 1936 in Hyères in southern France. From there, the family was forced to flee again, first to Cuba in 1939, before finally settling in Mexico City in 1942. The reader catches glimpses of these incidents and traumas in fragmented accounts and oblique references, sometimes clearly autobiographical [End Page 90] and sometimes refracted through the lives of twentieth-century prophets, poets, and philosophers, many of whom were Jewish. Drawing on the Jewish themes of exile and mysticism that she is credited with introducing to Mexican literature, as well as classical Western mythology, art, and music, Muñiz-Huberman is an extraordinarily erudite scholar. These meditations on death and other passages are a retrospective journey through the memories of an accomplished woman of letters late in life, confronting aging and the "proximity of death." However, this is far from a standard chronology of a singular life or accounting of a fraught century. These poetic, jagged, fractured contemplations reject order and convention. Elements of Muñiz-Huberman's biography appear in these essays, sometimes in first person, sometimes more distantly, occasionally displaced onto other historical figures as repositories of memory, all filtered through travels and crossings, loss, and (inevitably) trauma. She muses on death, exile, and wandering, through biographical and autobiographical hints and sketches, both her own as well as those of the philosophers and writers who populate these essays. In referring to luminaries by first name, she creates intimacy: Walter (Benjamin), Gershom (Scholem), Hannah (Arendt), Simone (Weil), and so many others. She also ponders the fate of lesser-known witnesses: journalists and photographers who were reunited in death across decades while documenting the human atrocities of "Spain. Vietnam. Suez." (She personalizes the tragedy of the ill-fated ship, the St. Louis, in the figure of the young poet, Leo Baum, who would rather plunge to his death in the port of Havana than return to Europe and its death camps.) They are connected to Muñiz-Huberman by the repetition or simultaneity of their experiences across time and across the ocean. These ocean crossings are layered onto those of Greek mythology, while the meanderings of exiled Jewish writers recapitulate the diasporas of their ancestors. In recuperating their stories, she recovers fragments of their memory, lost in death. However, Muñiz-Huberman is ambivalent about memory, referring to it as a hindrance, a prison sentence, an "unbearable accumulation" but also a "necessary guide," one that is unifying: "all memories are one exalted memory." Syncopated throughout these essays, arrhythmia serves as both metaphor and method. Her writing starts and stops, hiccups and sighs, with sentences and paragraphs that sometimes barely qualify as such, orchestrated by one for whom language is the very heart of...

Kurt Gottfried

Kurt Gottfried