Emerging from the internationally recognised Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane conference series, the chapters in this book offer wide-ranging critiques of that most pervasive of ideas, 'normal'. In particular, they explore the precarious positions we are presented with and, more often than not, forced into by 'normal', and its operating system, 'normalcy' (Davis, 2010). They are written by activists, students, practitioners and academics and offer related but diverse approaches. Importantly, however, the chapters also ask, what if increasingly precarious encounters with, (...) and positions of, marginality and non-normativity offers us a chance (perhaps the chance) to critically explore the possibilities of 'imagining otherwise'? The book questions the privileged position of 'non-normativity'; in youth and unpacks the expectation of the 'normal' student in both higher and primary education. It uses the position of transable people to push the boundaries of 'disability', interrogates the psycho-emotional disablism of box-ticking bureaucracy and spotlights the 'urge to know' impairment. It draws on cross-movement and cross-disciplinary work around disability to explore topics as diverse as drug use, The Bible and relational autonomy. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it explores the benefits of (re)instating 'normal'. By paying attention to the opportunities presented amongst the fissures of critique and defiance, this book offers new applications and perspectives for thinking through the most ordinary of ideas, 'normal'. (shrink)

Gilbert et al. argue that the neuroethics literature discussing the putative effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on personality largely ignores the scientific evidence and presents distorted claims that personality change is induced by the DBS stimulation. This study contributes to the first-hand primary research on the topic exploring DBS clinicians’ views on post-DBS personality change among their patients and its underlying cause. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen clinicians from various disciplines working in Australian DBS practice for movement disorders and/or (...) psychiatric conditions. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed five primary themes: 1) types, frequency and duration of personality change, 2) causes of personality change, 3) impact on patient and family, 4) communication, comprehension and awareness, and 5) management. Clinicians described a variety of personality changes in Parkinson’s disease following DBS including irritability, impulsivity and impaired decision-making. The frequency of personality change seen in patients varied amongst clinicians, but changes were overwhelmingly transient. Clinicians considered both DBS stimulation and additional factors as inducing personality change. For DBS patients with major depressive disorder, a restoration of pre-morbid personality was associated with alleviation of illness. Considerations for future research of personality change following DBS include selecting suitable tools for quantitative examination and developing a common language between the scientific and ethics communities. Clinical implications including recommendations for the informed consent process for patients and families and clinicians’ management of personality change are discussed. (shrink)

Launched in 1920 by C K Ogden and others as the successor to the Cambridge Magazine , Psyche occupied a unique place for over 30 years as a journal of general and linguistic psychology. Committed from the outset to keeping readers abreast of developments in the burgeoning fields of experimental, theoretical, and applied psychology, Psyche provided not only systematic reporting in these domains but set itself the task of stimulating research of high quality by the critical thrust of its (...) editorial stance. In addition to full-length articles, Psyche featured lively correspondence and discussion, a regular chronicle of research in the US and on the continent, a comprehensive survey of current literature, and regular reports from the meetings and congresses of associations and societies. I A Richards, E J Dingwall and Whately Smith were among those who added their regular contributions to editorials and features by C K Ogden. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The body image with respect to physical disability has long been a woefully under-theorized area of scholarship. The literature that does attend to the body image in cases of physical abnormality or functional impairment regularly offer poorly articulated or problematic definitions of the concept, effectively undermining its historic analytic scope and depth. Here, I revisit the epistemic roots of the body image while also engaging the rich contemporary literature from a body studies perspective in order to situate the narratives of (...) amputees about the relationship between dismemberment, prosthetization, phantom limb syndrome, and body image. Stories about living with artificial, fleshy, phantomed, and residual limbs unquestionably reveal a number of peculiarities unique to amputees. However, they also offer a distinctively productive ingress into the analytic utility of a ‘re-visioned’ conceptualization of the body image more broadly speaking. Indeed, the body image can function as a robust investigative tool for exploring the intersubjective, processual, and relational features of embodiment and corporeality. (shrink)

This article examines the best contemporary arguments for a feminist epistemology of scientific knowledge as found in recent works by S. Harding. I argue that no feminist epistemology of science is worthy of the name, because such an epistemology fails to escape well-known vicissitudes of epistemic relativism. But feminist epistemology merits attention from philosophers of science because it is part of a larger relativist turn in the social sciences and humanities that now aims to extend its critique to science, and (...) Harding's "standpoint feminism" is the best-developed case. She attempts to make new use of discredited philosophical ideas concerning underdetermination, Planck's Hypothesis, and the role of counterfactuals in historical studies of science. (shrink)

Efforts to understand gender segregation within and among science disciplines have focused on both supply- and demand-side explanations. Yet we know little about how academic scientists themselves view the sources of such segregation. Utilizing data from a survey of scientists at thirty top U.S. graduate programs in physics and biology and semistructured interviews with 150 of them, this article examines the reasons academic scientists provide for differences in the distribution of women in biology and physics. In quantitative analyses, gender is (...) more salient than discipline in determining the reasons scientists provide for gender disparities between disciplines, suggesting that gender may act as a “master status,” shaping the experiences of scientists regardless of the gender composition of the discipline. Qualitative interviews confirm this interpretation and reveal that scientists also perceive mentoring, natural differences, discrimination, and the history of the disciplines to be important factors. Results contribute to research on the relationship between emotional labor and occupational gender segregation conducted in professions such as law and nursing. (shrink)

History and philosophy complement and overlap each other in subject matter, but the two disciplines exhibit conflict over methodology. Since Hempel's challenge to historians that they should adopt the covering law model of explanation, the methodological conflict has revolved around the respective roles of the general and the particular in each discipline. In recent years, the revival of narrativism in history, coupled with the trend in philosophy of science to rely upon case studies, joins the methodological conflict anew. So long (...) as contemporary philosophy of science relies upon history's methodology to construct its case studies, it subjects itself to a paradoxical situation: the better the history, the worse the philosophy. An example of the methodological conflict is presented in the case of Antoine Lavoisier. This example also serves our ultimateconclusion, which is that distinctively philosophical methods of case-study design promise enhanced prescriptive powers for philosophy of science. (shrink)

Syntactic priming in language production is the increased likelihood of using a recently encountered syntactic structure. In this paper, we examine two theories of why speakers can be primed: error‐driven learning accounts (Bock, Dell, Chang, & Onishi, 2007; Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006) and activation‐based accounts (Pickering & Branigan, 1999; Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011). Both theories predict that speakers should be primed by the syntactic choices of others, but only activation‐based accounts predict that speakers should be able to prime (...) themselves. Here we test whether speakers can be primed by their own productions in three behavioral experiments and find evidence of structural persistence following both comprehension and speakers’ own productions. We also find that comprehension‐based priming effects are larger for rarer syntactic structures than for more common ones, which is most consistent with error‐driven accounts. Because neither error‐driven accounts nor activation‐based accounts fully explain the data, we propose a hybrid model. (shrink)

This article interrogates whether and how the concept of ‘patriarchy’ is used by UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies (treaty bodies) and special procedures to interpret state obligations to respect and ensure women’s human rights. There are two key points that arise out of this study: first, that several treaty bodies and special procedures purposely and consistently use the concept of ‘patriarchy’ when discussing women’s human rights, and second, that although not all treaty bodies and special procedures have referred to (...) the terms ‘patriarchy’ or ‘patriarchal’, an examination of those that have reveals a marked difference in how the terms are used by treaty bodies when compared with special procedures. While treaty bodies render the meaning of ‘patriarchy’ as being synonymous with certain harmful practices, such as female-genital mutilation (FGM), special procedures utilise ‘patriarchy’ as a system of power, permeating every facet of society. In this article I will argue that the current state of dissonance between the understandings of ‘patriarchy’ by treaty bodies and special procedures creates an unnecessary ambiguity that does nothing to advance gender equality. Furthermore, utilising a nuanced understanding of patriarchy, as articulated by intersectional and anti-essentialist feminist scholars, would potentially equip treaty bodies and special procedures for more meaningful interpretation of rights themselves, and greater protection of women’s human rights. (shrink)

Joanna Crosby and Dianna Taylor: The theme of this special section of Foucault Studies, “Foucauldian Spaces,” emerged out of the 2016 meeting of the Foucault Circle, where the four of you were participants. Each of the three individual papers contained in the special section critically deploys and/or reconceptualizes an aspect of Foucault’s work that engages and offers particular insight into the construction, experience, and utilization of space. We’d like to ask the four of you to reflect on what makes a (...) space Foucauldian, and whether or not you’d consider the space created by the convergence of and intellectual exchanges among an international group of Foucault scholars at the University of New South Wales in the summer of 2016 to be Foucauldian. (shrink)

(2002). Scarlet Letter or Chastity Belt? What Legal Dramas of the Twenty-first Century are “Telling” Law Students about a Career in Law. Legal Ethics: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 90-102.

This volume presents the first systematic evaluation of a feminist epistemology of sciences' power to transform both the practice of science and our society. Unlike existing critiques, this book questions the fundamental feminist suggestion that purging science of alleged male biases will advance the cause of both science and by extension, social justice. The book is divided into four sections: the strange status of feminist epistemology, testing feminist claims about scientific practice, philosophical and political critiques of feminist epistemology, and future (...) prospects of feminist epistemology. Each of the essays3/4most of which are original to this text3/4 directly confronts the very idea that there could be a feminist epistemology or philosophy of science. Rather than attempting to deal in detail with all of the philosophical views that fall under the general rubric of feminist epistemology, the contributors focus on positions that provide the most influential perspectives on science. Not all of the authors agree amongst themselves, of course, but each submits feminist theories to careful scrutiny. Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology provides a timely, well-rounded, and much needed examination of the role of gender in scientific research. (shrink)

The United States health care industry is the second largest in the world, expending an estimated 479 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide per year, nearly 8 percent of the country's total emissions. The importance of carbon reduction in health care is slowly being accepted. However, efforts to “green” health care are incomplete since they generally focus on buildings and structures. Yet hospital care and clinical service sectors contribute the most carbon dioxide within the U.S. health care industry, with (...) structures/equipment and pharmaceuticals ranking as the third and fourth highest emitters in the industry. Given the magnitude of health care carbon emissions—and the paucity of attention to the carbon of hospital care and clinical services—this essay identifies overuse of health care as a health threat with serious ethical implications, offers a data‐driven action plan for carbon reduction in health care, and provides practical suggestions for more sustainable health care delivery in the United States. (shrink)

This article examines how public health addresses alcohol use through marketing — place, product, promotion, and price. The article reviews current product trends and how restrictions on certain products designs may reduce youth consumption; how product availability may be restricted through zoning; and the current advertising landscape.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the continuity of teaching and learning is very important to provide sustainable education to all pupils. The most difficult aspect of language acquisition has always been the speaking component. Pupils’ lack of interest and the difficulty in teaching and practicing speaking skills in the traditional classroom are the main issues that hinder pupils’ speaking skills. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the flipped learning approach to improve primary school pupils’ speaking skills. In this (...) study, Blendspace was used to support the flipped learning method to help pupils improve their speaking skills. This study employed a mixed-method research design. For pre–posttests, questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data from Year 3 primary school students. The findings revealed that the use of Blendspace in teaching speaking has improved pupils’ speaking skills and that the pupils were motivated to practice speaking inside and outside of the classroom. Hence, the utilization of Blendspace in the flipped learning approach is an effective pedagogy to improve pupils’ speaking skills. The findings of this research would be useful for teachers and policymakers to assist pupils in enhancing their speaking abilities. (shrink)

Germ cell segregation and gamete production are developmental problems that all sexually reproducing species must solve in order to survive. Many people are familiar with the complex social structures of some insect species, where specialised castes of adult insects perform specific tasks, one of which is usually to guard the sexually reproductive queen. The parasitic wasp Copidosoma floridanum adds another level of complexity to the caste system: a fertilised egg produces both sterile, short‐lived “soldier” larvae and “reproductive” larvae that complete (...) metamorphosis to produce sexually reproductive adults. How two morphologically and functionally distinct larval castes are produced by genetically identical groups of cells developing under the same environmental conditions is a baffling problem. A recent paper suggests that differential germ cell segregation during embryogenesis may be an event both necessary and sufficient for caste determination.1 BioEssays 26:1263–1267, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

People who believe they have greater efficacy to address climate change are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviour. To confront the climate crisis, it will therefore be essential to understand the processes through which climate change efficacy is promoted. Some interventions in the literature assume that efficacy emerges from analytic reasoning processes: that it is deliberative, verbal, conscious, and influenced by information and education. In the current paper, we critique this notion. We review evidence showing that climate change efficacy (...) perceptions are (a) associated with climate-related distress and threat, (b) prescribed by social norms, (c) associated with social desirability and identity-expressive concerns, (d) surprisingly difficult to change through explicit, verbal instruction, but (e) responsive to imagery. We conclude by examining applied implications of these five propositions and discuss why non-analytic processes might (ironically) be beneficial for sustaining green activism. (shrink)

Motivated by disparities in gun violence, sharp increases in gun ownership, and a changing gun policy landscape, we conducted a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (n=2,778) in 2021 to compare safety-related views of white, Black, and Hispanic gun owners and non-owners. Black gun owners were most aware of homicide disparities and least expecting of personal safety improvements from gun ownership or more permissive gun carrying. Non-owner views differed. Health equity and policy opportunities are discussed.

Averroes on Intellect provides a detailed analysis of the Muslim philosopher Averroes 's notorious unicity thesis -- the view that there is only one separate and eternal intellect for all human beings. It focuses directly on Averroes' arguments, both from the text of Aristotle's De Anima and, more importantly, his own philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima. Stephen Ogden defends Averroes' interpretation of De Anima using a combination of Greek, Arabic, Latin, and contemporary sources. Yet, (...) Ogden also insists that Averroes is not merely a 'commentator' but an incisive philosopher in his own right. The author thus reconstructs and analyzes Averroes' two most significant independent philosophical arguments, the Determinate Particular Argument and the Unity Argument. Alternative ancient and medieval views are also considered throughout, especially from two important foils before and after Averroes, namely, Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas' most famous and penetrating arguments against the unicity thesis are also addressed. Finally, Ogden considers Averroes' own objections to broader metaphysical views of the soul like Avicenna's and Aquinas', which agree with him on several key points including the immateriality of the intellect and the individuation of human souls by matter, while still diverging on the number and substantial nature of the intellect. The central goal of this book is to provide readers with a single study of Averroes' most pivotal arguments on intellect, consolidating and building on recent scholarship and offering a comprehensive case for his unicity thesis in the wider context of Aristotelian epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

The 30th anniversary of the first DBS surgery of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson’s disease was celebrated in Grenoble this June. Since this initial surgery, the application of DBS has e...

Phenomenological literary criticism has long taken the one-on-one exchange with an other as the model for thinking about the reader-to-text relationship. However, new novels portraying genocides and civil wars are more likely to position readers as witnesses. Drawing on Jean-Luc Marion’s description of the subject as witness as well as works by Kelly Oliver and Jacques Derrida, this article offers a phenomenological description of the reader as witness. As witness, the reader is situated both by the literary text and also (...) by his or her particular embodied and intersubjective relations to the world. Constituted and no longer constituting, the reader/subject as witness finds herself a site in which other’s decisions have already been made, and her responsibility arises from the decisions she makes possible for others in the future. (shrink)

On the reality TV program Long Island Medium and in public performances, professional spirit medium Theresa Caputo interprets messages she says she receives from the spirits of the deceased. Based on interviews with people who have seen her on television or in a live stage performance, I sought to learn more about how viewers experience, interpret, and are affected by these readings and by her presentation of life after death. For viewers who believed in this television medium's abilities, I was (...) interested in how her interpretation of the spirit world corresponded with theirs. While some viewers were quite skeptical, for others the program provided a level of comfort about lost relatives and/or offered a means of validating or further understanding their own personal experiences with nonempirical phenomena. In this article, I explore how Long Island Medium may offer a cultural framework for interpreting perceptions of spirit entities that is not available in mainstream U.S. culture or religion. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the metaphysical and conceptual structures of reality organization that exist currently in western culture. Taking a feminist perspective, this paper analyzes how some disfavored social groups actively have their identities manipulated and sometimes conceptually erased from the dominant conceptual scheme. Utilizing this analysis, it is concluded that this conceptual scheme perpetuates oppression; therefore, maintained loyalty to it is incompatible with the belief that all people should be treated as full persons.

General Practitioners (GPs) and allied healthcare professionals working in primary care are regularly required to make decisions with, for and on behalf of patients who lack capacity. In England and Wales, these decisions are made for incapacitated adult patients under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which primarily requires that decisions are made in the patient’s ‘best interests’. Regarding children, decisions are also made in their best interests but are done so under the Children Act 1989, which places paramount importance on (...) the welfare of the child. Decisions for children are usually made by parents, but a GP may become involved if he or she feels a parent is not acting in the best interests of the child. Internationally, including elsewhere in the UK, different approaches are taken. We hypothesise that, despite the legislation and professional guidelines, there are many different approaches taken by GPs and allied healthcare professionals in England and Wales when making these complex decisions with, for and on behalf of patients who lack capacity. To better understand what is known about how these decisions are made, we plan to undertake a scoping review and directed content analysis of the literature. While the majority of decisions made in primary care are made by GPs, for completeness, this review will include all allied healthcare professionals working in primary care. (shrink)

The rise in popularity in recent times of dystopian fiction is reflective of contemporary anxieties about law: the inhumanity of judicial-coercive machinery; the influence of corporate power; the lack of democratic imagination despite the desperate need for political reform; and the threat of order imposed through violence and victimisation. These dystopian texts often tell fear-inducing stories of law’s failure to protect; or of law’s unsuccessful struggle against unbridled power; or even sometimes of law’s ‘bastardised’ reconstruction. Indeed comics, with their visual (...) and narrative intricacies, thrive on dystopia as a key vehicle for contributing to collective notions of fear and trembling about the future. Yet, at the same time, these texts also contain within them the blueprints for hope—the idea that with transformation, heroic intervention, and/or faith in ‘justice’, the law will ultimately prevail. Law’s ability to be transformed is thus simultaneously portrayed as society’s downfall, AND as the key to enlivening humanity. This article attempts to understand this schismatic role of law as presented in the recent dystopian comic book series From Above by Australian creator Craig Bruyn. In this series set in futuristic Melbourne, where law has given way to an unaccountable corporate rule, the social divide is made manifest by the absence of ‘order’, ‘law’ and ‘justice’ in certain segments of society, and yet hope in law’s return is ever-present. The paper will interrogate expectations of law and justice that is mediated through the complex interaction of fear and hope, and contextualise this within current contemporary anxieties. (shrink)

Transform your yoga practice into a force for creating social change with this concise, eloquent guide to social justice tools and skills. Skill in Action asks you to explore the deeply transformational practice of yoga as a way to become an agent of social change and work toward a just world. Through yoga practices and philosophy, this book explores liberation for ourselves and others, while asking us to engage in our own agency-whether that manifests as activism, volunteer work, or changing (...) our relationships with others and ourselves. To provide a strong foundation to begin this work, Michelle Cassandra Johnson clearly defines power and privilege, oppression, liberation, and suffering, and invites you to make changes in your life that promote equality and freedom for all. Each chapter ends with a breathwork, asana, meditation, or interpersonal relational practice to help you incorporate this wisdom into your daily life. Each of the practices extend beyond the individual to offer resources and tools to shift institutional policies and procedures in a culture that has left all of us negatively impacted by white supremacy and social inequity. We must awaken to the injustice and suffering of marginalized communities, and we must use our voices and actions toward the liberation of all people. (shrink)