In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems JOSEPHINE BALMER The House Opposite (Walbrook, London, 78 CE) Give this note to the cooper Junius, just opposite the house of Catullus... —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 14 I unpack my treasures of Syrian glass, plates sourced from the slopes of Vesuvius. The walls I paint with frail shoots of grass and a poppy—my own hidden message for those who know the poet, my namesake: a flower fallen (...) at the meadow’s edge... I had pictured myself as a pioneer composing stark, startling, northern poems as fêted (one day) as my famed forebear. Besides, I’d been priced out of Rome. Yet each word I write I later delete. I watch the starlings rising up at dusk above the teeming, cloud-fogged streets like a simile slipping out of grasp. I hear the drunken Rhenish equites chant their taproom verse, swilled in vomit our bleak reward for six months’ back pay. My voice still clogs with Londinium clay. All I am here is the house opposite the cooper, two doors from the brewer. The only lines that come, come in error and for them: barrels, bills, more calls for beer. arion 27.2 fall 2019 Catullus the Slave (Walbrook, London, 79 CE) To Catullus the slave of Romanius Faustinus: 2000 units, 65 denarii [lines struck through] —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 70 Six months on, the ice kicked in. My page was frost-white, its lines still frozen. By the following year I had given up, sold everything— volcanic crockery to the cooper, ink-smudged glass to the brewer who was branching out to wine. When even that was not enough I sold myself to Romanius Faustinus, a scrawny Gallic works contractor (a literary man, he said, was worth more than most). I did his books. I counted bricks, tessera for mosaics shifting back into the face of Orpheus, accounts closed, nothing outstanding. I learnt silence where once I spoke— he owned the air, he owned my breath— so I mouthed the verse I used to quote, the finest Catullus (snr) had written: you pea-brain, hairy-legged hick whose farts are your best feature... And concurred re bastard Caesar: why did he ever eye up Britain, that cursed place, ugly and remote? two poems 136... (shrink)

Over the years, companies have adopted hiring algorithms because they promise wider job candidate pools, lower recruitment costs and less human bias. Despite these promises, they also bring perils. Using them can inflict unintentional harms on individual human rights. These include the five human rights to work, equality and nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression and free association. Despite the human rights harms of hiring algorithms, the AI ethics literature has predominantly focused on abstract ethical principles. This is problematic for two reasons. (...) First, AI principles have been criticized for being vague and not actionable. Second, the use of vague ethical principles to discuss algorithmic risks does not provide any accountability. This lack of accountability creates an algorithmic accountability gap. Closing this gap is crucial because, without accountability, the use of hiring algorithms can lead to discrimination and unequal access to employment opportunities. This paper makes two contributions to the AI ethics literature. First, it frames the ethical risks of hiring algorithms using international human rights law as a universal standard for determining algorithmic accountability. Second, it evaluates four types of algorithmic impact assessments in terms of how effectively they address the five human rights of job applicants implicated in hiring algorithms. It determines which of the assessments can help companies audit their hiring algorithms and close the algorithmic accountability gap. (shrink)

Maiese and Hanna (2019) argue that social institutions shape and transform our embodied minds, and that detrimental and harmful institutions can be reverted in order to promote mentally healthy, authentic, and fulfilling lives. This commentary aims to complement this proposal by understanding the role that narratives and narrative practices play in shaping our embodied minds, by highlighting narrativity’s (1) active, deliberative, and productive functions, and (2) its strong entanglement with embodiment. We will argue that this addition to Maiese and Hanna’s (...) account allows agents to assume a more active role within social institutions by engaging in conscious and deliberative self-narration. This is because, we contend, not only do we understand ourselves and others according to cultural narrative archetypes; we also, crucially, bring about concrete changes in our embodiment and behavior by narrative deliberation and intention formation. As such, self-narration is not only an intellectual endeavor, but can also have profound consequences for how we experience the world; in other words, narrative practices can purposefully alter our affective framing which, in Maiese and Hanna’s account, is fundamental in the process of changing detrimental institutions into constructive, enabling institutions. (shrink)

In _Beyond Animal Rights_, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from _Beyond Animal Rights_ are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they (...) suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. (shrink)

This book is aimed at those who wish to understand more about the molecular basis of life and how life on earth may change in coming centuries. Readers of this book will gain knowledge of how life began on Earth, the natural processes that have led to the great diversity of biological organisms that exist today, recent research into the possibility of life on other planets, and how the future of life on earth faces unprecedented pressures from human-made activities. Readers (...) will obtain a perspective on the potential risks of chemical or nuclear warfare, and the ever-increasing risks from human activities that are causing pollution and climate change with global heating. Readers will also learn about ongoing research efforts to generate “designer lifeforms” through synthetic biology and applications of artificial intelligence. The book makes an integrated, up-to-date, overview of topics often considered as separate fields. It should be valuable to students, teachers, and people who are concerned about the future of life. (shrink)

The mortality and morbidity resulting from noncommunicable diseases including cancer in sub- Saharan Africa are predicted to overtake that of infectious diseases by the year 2030. Esophageal cancer is on the increase in Tanzania. This study estimates risk factors for esophageal cancer, ethical issues and the level of awareness of cancer related services among adults in rural Kilimanjaro. A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted of adults aged 18 years and above in three wards, namely, Kahe, mabogini and Arusha Chini, (...) Moshi Rural District, Kilimanjaro region. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a total of 419 individuals. The mean age was 36.47 =13.49) years. Of those who participated, 211 were male and 60% reported to have completed primary education. A majority of participants were knowledgeable about esophageal cancer risk factors. Overall, 15% and 23% of the participants reported to have been smoking and drinking alcohol, respectively. Male respondents were almost three times more likely to be smokers as compared to female respondents. Moreover, people who were self-employed were about five times more likely to be smokers as compared to those who were unemployed.. Male respondents were almost two times more likely to be drinkers as compared to female respondents. Overall, the level of awareness of cancer related health services was about 70%. The study findings confirm that despite a good level of knowledge about risk factors for esophageal cancer, the practice of exposure to risk factors is alarmingly high. Awareness of where to seek cancer related health services was high with hospitals been mentioned by the majority though there was low understanding on modalities of treatment among adults in Rural Kilimanjaro. Intervention measures should aim at further increasing knowledge of cancer risk factors and reduce the practice of such risks. Ethical matters including truth telling, ageism and autonomy need to be addressed to improve the perception of cancer related health issues and health seeking behaviour. (shrink)

In response to the discussion between William W. Morgan and Annette Kolodny in the Summer 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry I would like to address the issue of separating judgments based on feminism as an ideology from purely aesthetic judgments. Peripherally this included the issue of "prescriptive criticism," so labeled by Cheri Register in Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory.1 In the same book, as Kolodny points out,2 I called for criticism that exists in the "prophetic mode." Kolodny indicates reservations (...) about both concepts without fully exploring the issue. I would like to explain my statement here and to explore further the issue of feminism and aesthetics. When I called for criticism in the prophetic mode, I did not intend to promote an idea of the critic as ideological prophet. Rather, as I explain in the context from which the term is taken,3 I am speaking of the engaged scholar who is concerned to influence the future by her/his work today. S/he chooses her/his work with an eye to encourage political and social changes. Obviously, for a feminist this translates into a concern for a future in which women will be free from many of the restrictions that have held them down in the past. Much feminist criticism is thus corrective criticism designed to redress the imbalance in current literary curricula, and more generally to reintroduce "the feminine" into the public culture. · 1. Cheri Register, "American Feminist Literary Criticism: A Bibliographical Introduction ," Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory, ed. Josephine Donovan pp. 11-24.· 2. Annette Kolodny, "The Feminist as Literary Critic," Critical Inquiry 2 : 828.· 3. Josephine Donovan, "Critical Re-Vision," Feminist Literary Criticism, p. 81, n. 2. Josephine Donovan, currently working on a literary biography of Sarah Orne Jewett, has written "Feminist Style Criticism," "Sexual Politics in the Short Stories of Sylvia Plath," and has edited Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory. Although the occasion for this response was the exchange between Annette Kolodny and William W. Morgan , the questions raised by Ms. Donovan have some bearing on other topics discussed in Critical Inquiry—e.g., the nature of accepted canons in the arts . In addition the question of how we may interpret literary works from the past that contain currently unacceptable representations of women has implications as well for how we respond to "objectionable" representations of ethnic and religious groups and even of social classes. The editors expect to see these issues explored further in the future. (shrink)

Was ist Musik? Diese musikphilosophische Fragestel-lung bildet den Ausgangspunkt von Josephine Geislers phänomenologischer Untersuchung, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zur anthropologischen Grundlagenforschung liefert. Geisler greift in diesem Zusammenhang nicht nur auf die Phänomenologie der Tonwahrnehmung Husserls zurück, sondern auch auf Helmuth Plessners ästhesiologische Schriften, die bisher kaum rezipiert wurden. Auch Günther Anders' musikphänomenologische Habilitationsschrift - noch nicht veröffentlicht und daher wenig bekannt - dient als theoretische Grundlage. Anhand dieser drei Autoren legt die Arbeit mit den Kategorien Zeitlichkeit, Leiblichkeit und Gestimmtheit (...) anthropologische Konstanten des Verhältnisses Mensch-Musik frei und verweist damit auf den normativen Eigensinn des besonderen Wahrnehmungsereignisses Musik. (shrink)

One argument Robert and Baylis do not raise in their article on the creation of interspecies chimeras using human cellular material is that the creation of these chimeras would, or could, offend human dignity. Yet, human dignity is one of the most common concerns raised in public debates, academic arguments, and policy documents regarding biotechnology in general, and the creation animal-human chimeras in particular. … The concept is ill-defined within bioethics and … risks being dismissed as meaningless or uselessly vague. (...) However, this lack of definition should not yet cause us to abandon or ignore human dignity. At least in arguments about creating chimeras, an examination of what may be meant by appeals to human dignity can uncover important concerns or arguments that are not captured by other formulations of the debate. (shrink)

When Nadya Suleman gave birth to eight babies in January 2009, the story ignited a media frenzy—first because the babies were only the second set of octuplets born in the United States, and later because of the irregularities of their conception by in vitro fertilization and the personal details of their mother's life. Hidden beneath the sensational aspects of the story, though, are a number of fundamental ethical, medical, and legal issues concerning assisted reproductive technologies. Three essays examine these questions.

Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book.

The authors aim in this article to show why it is extremely difficult to expect representatives of missionary religions to engage in productive interreligious dialogue. The article demonstrates how the imperative to convert, which is rooted in a sense of epistemic authority that one holds the best version of truth, precludes interreligious dialogue among religionists. The authors note, on the one hand, that the primary condition for any dialogue is that each of those involved come to the dialogue intellectually humble. (...) On the other hand, the authors note that for missionary religionists to embrace intellectual humility requires a fundamental rethink of their claims of epistemological certainty and final epistemic authority. This implies abandoning the missionary mandate and witnessing built on a sense of intellectual certainty and pride. The authors therefore argue that intellectual humility is a necessary condition for productive interreligious dialogue. Because representatives of missionary religions claim certainty about the knowledge they espouse, what is paraded as interreligious dialogue is largely a myth. It will remain a mere concept that yields little to no tangible result unless these representatives embrace intellectual humility, which is more achievable within a secularist framework.Contribution: This research contributes to the seemingly easy but difficult discourse and practice about interreligious dialogue. It brings to the limelight a more appropriate conception of dialogue in the context of interreligious dialogue, and explains how side-lining that conception empties the predominant practice of interreligous dialogue. This contribution is useful to HTS, which focuses on theological and religious studies, as well as critical study of religions. (shrink)

When the use of CRIsPR-Cas9 to edit DNA was first reported in 2012, it was quickly heralded by scientists, policymakers, and journalists as a transformative technology. CRISPR-Cas9 provides the means to change DNA in ways that either were not generally possible using previous genetic technologies or that were orders of magnitude more laborious or inefficient to undertake. CRISPR's possible applications were readily apparent and seemingly endless, from supercharging laboratory research to modifying insects that transmit disease to eliminating genetic conditions. By (...) 2015, Wired magazine was calling the discovery "The Genesis Engine."Against a backdrop of disappointing results from gene transfer... (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine On 31 October 2017 it will be five hundred years since Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, the date traditionally hailed as the start of the Lutheran Reformation. Another anniversary is a personal one: it is twenty-five years since I began teaching Reformation history. It seems an appropriate time, therefore, to pause and reflect on the significance of this task.

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

Until recently, medicine has had little to offer most of the millions of patients suffering from rare and ultrarare genetic conditions. But the development in 2019 of Milasen, the first genetic intervention developed for and administered to a single patient suffering from an ultrarare genetic disorder, has offered hope to patients and families. In addition, Milasen raised a series of conceptual and ethical questions about how individualised genetic interventions should be developed, assessed for safety and efficacy and financially supported. The (...) answers to these questions depend in large part on whether individualised therapies are understood as human subjects research or clinical innovation, different domains of biomedicine that are regulated by different modes of oversight, funding and professional norms. In this article, with development and administration of the drug Milasen as our case study, we argue that at least some individualised genetic therapies are not, as some have argued, either research or treatment. Instead, they are research-treatment hybrids, a category that has both epistemological and pragmatic repercussions for funding, ethics oversight and regulation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe attempts of scholars and scientists to unravel the mystery of the ancestral origins of the Lemba are summarised, focusing on Tudor Parfitt's book, Journey to the Vanished City, and a study by an international group of genetic and social scientists. The impact of this research on identity questions is raised.

Because an influenza pandemic would create the most serious hardships for those who already face most serious hardships, countries should take special measures to mitigate the effect of a pandemic on existing social inequalities. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that anybody is thinking about that.

As new parents quickly learn, parenting always involves choosing your battles. Ideally, parents have the freedom to make those moral choices without the prejudice of an unreasonable or premature inflicted ought. Resolving the predictive uncertainties of genomic information is the professional responsibility of the biomedical community, just as clarifying the impact of global warming or assessing the risks of rising multidrug resistance is the responsibility of similar specialists. Until sequencing can give parents clear and meaningful information that they can use (...) to protect their children without also burdening parents with uncertain findings about which little if anything can be done, it makes no sense to impute an obligation for them to seek it out. To do so not only increases the mental and emotional burden on parents but also distorts the scope of parental responsibility in ways that undermine parents’ capacity to play their immediate role as the nurturers of a new life. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine The archbishop of Adelaide, it must be acknowledged, did not play a prominent role at Vatican II. Matthew Beovich never gave a speech in the aula, the Council 'hall' inside St Peter's Basilica, nor did he prepare a written submission. At first glance, his seemingly minimal participation reinforces the damning judgment of Patrick O'Farrell that members of the Australian hierarchy were 'frequently uncomprehending and even resistant to the spirit of change'. With this from the doyen of Catholic (...) historians in Australia in the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that Ian Breward concluded in his survey of Australian religious history: 'Most Australian bishops were bemused observers of a process which shattered their convictions about the uniformity of the Roman Catholic Church. Australian contributions to Council debates were few. The pragmatism and traditionalism of the Australian Church stood nakedly exposed'. (shrink)

Résumé Dans les situations sociomotrices, l’engagement des participants n’est pas seulement réductible aux communications directes. Il est surtout lié à l’émergence de systèmes de signes assurant la dynamique globale du jeu. Nous proposons d’appréhender la communication comme un système d’interaction global constitué de plusieurs canaux. On y retrouve les communications directes mais aussi quatre systèmes de signes : celui des praxèmes, des gestèmes, des gestes et des communications verbales. Ce travail interroge la place de chaque canal communicationnel dans deux sports (...) et deux jeux traditionnels. Nous recrutons trois groupes de 20 étudiants pour participer aux jeux mentionnés. Les communications sont filmées, décryptées, triées et catégorisées. On constate une forte prévalence des praxèmes dans les sports collectifs, tandis que la répartition des communications est plus équilibrée dans les jeux traditionnels. La quantité, la variabilité et l’organisation des signes sont sensibles à la logique interne. Globalement, cette recherche tend à montrer que les jeux sont un formidable laboratoire in vivo pour comprendre l’organisation des systèmes de signes. Spécifiquement, elle apporte des informations sur le pouvoir socialisant de la sémiotricité de chaque jeu et sur le renouvellement des pédagogies qu’elle peut engendrer. (shrink)

The opioid epidemic demands the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative, research-informed practices such as diversion programs. Aritürk et al. have articulated important bioethical considerations for implementing diversion programs in resource-constrained service environments. In this commentary, we expand and advance Aritürk et al.’s discussion by discussing existing resources that can be utilized to implement diversion programs that prevent or otherwise minimize the issues of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice identified by Aritürk et al.

Laffin, Josephine Review(s) of: Blessed and beautiful: Picturing the saints, by Robert Kiely, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp.344, $49.95.

The theoretical value of talking to the media isn’t hard to appreciate. Who doesn’t want to shape the public conversation, whether to make it more nuanced and reasoned or to bring injustice and wrongdoing to light? Issues you’ve studied are in the news and you get to be the expert, pointing out what’s wrong, or right, or offering another way of thinking about a difficult question. If you’re lucky, you get your name in print—and in a publication your friends and (...) family actually read. But it can also be intimidating. I used to feel like the hapless witness about to be cross-examined by the wily attorney. I’d heard about the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the push to appeal to the lowest common denominator. .. (shrink)

In a series of essays and letters published in 2010, commentators in bioethics debated the ethics of two interventions that aim to prevent or treat a symptom of a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can cause “virilization” in affected baby girls—the development of atypical, sometimes masculine‐appearing, genitals. Surgeries are often performed to try to “normalize” both the appearance and the function of affected girls’ genitals, and a drug thought to prevent virilization is sometimes prescribed to pregnant women who (...) are likeliest to be carrying an affected fetus. The CAH debates suggest that there is profound disagreement in the field about whether preventing or treating virilization is an appropriate goal of medicine—or, indeed, parenting. Of course, that disagreement has its roots in ongoing debates about how to understand and react to a range of anatomical and behavioral differences, from short stature to deafness to hyperactivity, as well as ongoing debates about the limits of autonomy—in this case, parental autonomy, which is all the more complex. These issues are at the heart of bioethics. Yet it can be very difficult for us to talk and write respectfully and clearly about them. Here, I recount the debates, show how they lost focus, and attempt to explain why the question about how parents and physicians should respond to atypical genitalia in children is so important and difficult. I argue that it is not a question that should be answered based on a single principle or philosophical commitment. No one principle can do all of the work. For each individual or family that faces it, the question is shaped by details about particular interventions aimed at altering a particular difference and offered in a particular social and family context. Scholars in bioethics who hold an especially strong commitment to any one principle should advocate for their views, but they must also make room for and respect the kind of pragmatic, particularized decision‐making that parents sometimes engage in. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This summary lays out the basic science and methodology used in genetic testing that investigates historical population migrations and the ancestry of living individuals. The genetic markers used in this testing, and the distinction between Y‐chromosome, mitochrondial and autosomes analysis, are explained and the shortcomings of these methodologies are explored.

In recent years, we have been observing the phenomenon of an emerging scientific field: _digital transformation research_ (DTR). Due to the diversity and complexity of its object of research digital, transformation is not effectively researchable if confined to the boundaries of individual disciplines. In the light of Scientific/Intellectual Movement theory (Frickel and Gross 2005 ), we wonder how interdisciplinarity could and should be mobilized to further advance the development of the field of DTR. To answer this question, we (a) need (...) to understand how interdisciplinarity is conceived and (b) how it is considered in research practice by researchers in the emerging field. This is important, as scientists’ application of interdisciplinarity will highly influence an emerging field, shape its growth, consolidation as well as its academic establishment. We conducted six group discussions with 26 researchers from different disciplines and career levels (PhD students, postdocs, professors). The discussions were studied with a structuring qualitative content analysis. The results reflect the vagueness of the concept of interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity is largely conceived as multidisciplinarity. Further, the interviewees mentioned more challenges than opportunities when it comes to interdisciplinary DTR. The present study widens the scientific understanding about how researchers of different career levels perceive, learn, and practice interdisciplinarity in DTR. It further provides valuable indications of how interdisciplinary research in an emerging field can be profitably shaped for practice. (shrink)