__Cultural Studies and Education_ is a timely introduction to cultural studies and the ways in which it can enrich both education scholarship and practice._ An extensive field that in the last few decades has transformed many academic disciplines, cultural studies has yet to be fully considered by educators and education scholars. Cultural Studies and Education redresses this great shortcoming, bringing cultural studies and its implications for education to the fore. The book aims to serve three main purposes. First, it is (...) an introduction for educators and education researchers to some of the most important theoretical debates and analytic frameworks that have shaped the field of cultural studies. Second, it offers an introduction to and examples of three important areas of inquiry in which education and cultural studies overlap: gender and queer studies; postcolonial and ethnic studies; and popular culture and youth studies. Third, it illustrates how education scholars have dealt with the conceptual challenges of cultural studies and how education offers unique perspectives and contributions to the broader debates in the field.". (shrink)

Researchers investigating gender and anger have consistently found that White women, but not White men, are evaluated unfavorably when experiencing anger in the workplace. Our project originally aimed to extend findings on White women’s, Black women’s, and White men’s workplace anger by examining whether evaluations are exacerbated or buffered by invalidating or affirming comments from others. In stark contrast to previous research on gender stereotyping and anger evaluations, however, results across four studies (N= 1,095) showed that both Black and White (...) women portrayed as experiencing anger in the workplace were evaluatedmore favorablythan White men doing so. After Study 1’s initial failure to conceptually replicate, we investigated whether perceivers’ evaluations of women’s workplace anger could have been affected by the contemporaneous cultural event of #MeToo. Supporting this possibility, we found evaluations were moderated by news engagement and beliefs that workplace opportunities are gendered. Additionally, we found invalidating comments rarely affected evaluations of a protagonist yet affirming comments tended to favorably affect evaluations. Overall, findings suggest the need for psychologists to consider the temporary, or perhaps lasting, effects of cultural events on research outcomes. (shrink)

Seminary students remain unstudied in the research literature despite their eminent role in caring for the wellbeing of congregants. This study aimed to conduct baseline analysis of their family of origin health, psychological health, and physiological heath by utilizing the Biobehavioral Family Model as a conceptual framework for understanding the associations between these constructs. Statistical analysis utilizing structural equation modeling provided support that the BBFM was a sound model for assessing the relationships between these constructs within a seminary sample. Additionally, (...) seminarians were found to have higher rates of anxiety and depression when compared to the general population. Together, findings indicate that clinical care for seminarians may be best if implemented from a global systemic perspective. (shrink)

RationaleSurrogates of critically ill patients often have inaccurate expectations about prognosis. Yet there is little research on how intensive care unit clinicians should discuss prognosis, and existing expert opinion-based recommendations give only general guidance that has not been validated with surrogate decision makers.ObjectiveTo determine the perspectives of key stakeholders regarding how prognostic information should be conveyed in critical illness.MethodsThis was a multicenter study at three academic medical centers in California, Pennsylvania, and Washington. One hundred eighteen key stakeholders completed in-depth semistructured (...) interviews. Participants included 47 surrogates of adult patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome; 45 clinicians working in study ICUs, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers; and 26 experts in health communication, decision science, ethics, family-centered care, geriatrics, healthcare disparities, palliative care, psychology, psychiatry, and critical care.Measurements and main resultsThere was broad support among surrogates for existing expert recommendations, including truthful prognostic disclosure, emotional support, tailoring the disclosure strategy to each family's needs, and checking for understanding. In addition, stakeholders offered suggestions that add specificity to existing recommendations, including: In addition to conveying prognostic estimates, clinicians should help families "see the prognosis for themselves" by showing families radiographic images and explaining the clinical significance of physical manifestations of severe disease at the bedside. Many physicians did not support using numeric estimates to convey prognosis to families, whereas many surrogates, clinicians from other disciplines, and experts believed numbers could be helpful. Clinicians should conceptualize prognostic communication as an iterative process that begins with a preliminary mention of the possibility of death early in the ICU stay and becomes more detailed as the clinical situation develops. Although prognostic information should be initially disclosed by physicians, other members of the multidisciplinary team-nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers-should be given explicit role responsibilities to reinforce physicians' prognostications and help families process a poor prognosis emotionally.ConclusionsFamily members, clinicians, and experts identified specific communication behaviors that clinicians should use to discuss prognosis in the critical care setting. These findings extend existing opinion-based recommendations and should guide interventions to improve communication about prognosis in ICUs. (shrink)

This article analyzes the photographic exhibit Yuyanapaq: Para Recordar, which was a product of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It focuses specifically on the curatorial process and political desires shaping Yuyanapaq, and it examines the ways in which photographs were intended to intervene in and script a national consciousness and shared memory during and after Peru’s transition process. Exploring across the three iterations of Yuyanapaq, I ask how we might attempt to bear witness to past conflict without inadvertently perpetuating (...) its logic. (shrink)

This article aims to trace the development of the concept of the state through the use of the word by politicians and lawyers as well as by theorists, without prejudice as to what �state� ought to mean.

In the aftermath of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a predicted (and emerging) increase in experiences of mental illness. This phenomenon has been described as “the next pandemic”, suggesting that the concepts used to understand and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are being transferred to conceptualize mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic was, and continues to be, framed in public media using military metaphors, which can potentially migrate to conceptualizations of mental illness along with pandemic rhetoric. Given that metaphors shape (...) what is considered justifiable action, and how we understand justice, I argue we have a moral responsibility to interrogate who benefits and who is harmed by the language and underlying conceptualizations this rhetoric legitimates. By exploring how military metaphors have been used in the context of COVID-19, I argue that this rhetoric has been used to justify ongoing harm to marginalized groups while further entrenching established systems of power. Given this history, I present what it may look like were military metaphors used to conceptualize a “mental illness pandemic”, what actions this might legitimate and render inconceivable, and who is likely to benefit and be harmed by such rhetorically justified actions. (shrink)

A vision of a living code of ethics is proposed to counter the emphasis on negative phenomena in the study of organizational ethics. The living code results from the harmonious interaction of authentic leadership, five key organizational processes (attraction–selection–attrition, socialization, reward systems, decision-making and organizational learning), and an ethical organizational culture (characterized by heightened levels of ethical awareness and a positive climate regarding ethics). The living code is the cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestation of an ethical organizational identity. We draw (...) on business ethics literature, positive organizational scholarship, and management literature to outline the elements of positive ethical organizations as those exemplary organizations consistently practicing the highest levels of organizational ethics. In a positive ethical organization, the right thing to do is the only thing to do. (shrink)

When someone encounters an explanation perceived as weak, this may lead to a feeling of deprivation or tension that can be resolved by engaging in additional learning. This study examined to what extent children respond to weak explanations by seeking additional learning opportunities. Seven‐ to ten‐year‐olds (N = 81) explored questions and explanations (circular or mechanistic) about 12 animals using a novel Android tablet application. After rating the quality of an initial explanation, children could request and receive additional information or (...) return to the main menu to choose a new animal to explore. Consistent with past research, there were both developmental and IQ‐related differences in how children evaluated explanation quality. But across development, children were more likely to request additional information in response to circular explanations than mechanistic explanations. Importantly, children were also more likely to request additional information in direct response to explanations that they themselves had assigned low ratings, regardless of explanation type. In addition, there was significant variability in both children's explanation evaluation and their exploration, suggesting important directions for future research. The findings support the deprivation theory of curiosity and offer implications for education. (shrink)

John McCumber's Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era provides a compelling account of a repressed part of philosophy's history and its tragic consequences for subsequent decades of philosophic practice in the U.S. Political values and interests originating in McCarthyism got encoded within abstract conceptual frameworks, propelling analytic philosophy to an undeserved position of authority while depriving it of critical self-understanding. This comment identifies residues of McCarthyism still playing out in the Science Wars, and the career of (...) critical philosophic projects in both other disciplines and philosophy's feminist and multicultural fringes. (shrink)

This study examines the use of a modified form of the theory of planned behavior in understanding the decisions of undergraduate students in engineering and humanities to engage in cheating. We surveyed 527 randomly selected students from three academic institutions. Results supported the use of the model in predicting ethical decision-making regarding cheating. In particular, the model demonstrated how certain variables (gender, discipline, high school cheating, education level, international student status, participation in Greek organizations or other clubs) and moral constructs (...) related to intention to cheat, attitudes toward cheating, perceptions of norms with respect to cheating, and ultimately cheating behaviors. Further the relative importance of the theory of planned behavior constructs was consistent regardless of context, whereas the contributions of variables included in the study that were outside the theory varied by context. Of particular note were findings suggesting that the extent of cheating in high school was a strong predictor of cheating in college and that engineering students reported cheating more frequently than students in the humanities, even when controlling for the number of opportunities to do so. (shrink)

In this interview, poet, playwright and human rights activist, Sonia Sanchez, offers rare commentary on her creative process and her life as an artist-activist. Sanchez discusses her childhood in Alabama and the influence of her father and her grandmother in her work. She talks about her dissatisfactions with organized religion, the meaning of spirituality in her life, and the challenge of living a principled life. Sanchez also describes her encounter with Malcolm X, her experience in the Nation of Islam and (...) gender tensions in the Black Arts Movement. Finally, Prof. Sanchez offers advice to young hip hop artists and explains her creative process as a writer. (shrink)

The interplay between violence, religion, and politics is a central problem for societies and has attracted the attention of important philosophers, including Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and René Girard. Centuries earlier during the Italian Renaissance, these same problems drew the interest of Niccolò Machiavelli. In Not Even a God Can Save Us Now, Brian Harding argues that Machiavelli’s work anticipates – and often illuminates – contemporary theories on the place of violence in our lives. While remaining cognizant of the (...) historical and cultural context of Machiavelli’s writings, Harding develops Machiavelli’s accounts of sacrifice, truth, religion, and violence and places them in conversation with those of more contemporary thinkers. Including in-depth discussions of Machiavelli’s works The Prince and Discourses on Livy, as well as his Florentine Histories, The Art of War, and other less widely discussed works, Harding interprets Machiavelli as endorsing sacrificial violence that founds or preserves a state, while censuring other forms of violence. This reading clarifies a number of obscure themes in Machiavelli’s writings, and demonstrates how similar themes are at work in the thought of recent phenomenologists. The first book to approach both Machiavellian and contemporary continental thought in this way, Not Even a God Can Save Us Now is a highly original and provocative approach to both the history of philosophy and to contemporary debates about violence, religion, and politics. (shrink)

Michael Tomasello explains the human sense of obligation by the role it plays in negotiating practices of acting jointly and the commitments they underwrite. He draws in his work on two models of joint action, one from Michael Bratman, the other from Margaret Gilbert. But Bratman's makes the explanation too difficult to succeed, and Gilbert's makes it too easy.

SummaryPhilosophic questions about the adequacy of our prevailing Western conceptions of rationality have emerged from the growing recognition that one cannot simply “add women” as objects of knowledge to the existing bodies of our social and natural knowledge. Recent research in psychology and in moral development theory suggests that our understandings of the rationality of human activity are distorted and obscured by systematically identifying as universally desireable, as Human goals, conceptions of the self, others, and the appropriate relationships between the (...) two which are distinctively masculine. The essay suggests some implications of these research findings for the ways philosophers think about “the problems of philosophy”, moral theory, the role of formality and abstractness, and the “rational reconstructions” of the history of science.RésuméDes questions philosophiques se sont posées, a propos de ľadéquation de nos conceptions occidentales courantes de la rationalité, du fait de la reconnaissance qu'on ne peut pas simplement ajouter les femmes comme objets de connaissance aux corpus existants de notre connais‐sance sociale et naturelle. Des recherches récentes en psychologie et en théorie du développement moral suggèrent que notre comprèhension de la rationalité de ľactivité humaine est déformee et obscurcie par une identification systématique, comme universellement désirables, comme buts de ľhumanité, des conceptions de soi, des autres et des relations entre les deux qui sont distincte‐ment masculines. Cet essai suggère quelques applications de ces resultats de recherche quant à la maniere dont les philosophes pensent les problèmes de la philosophies la morale, le rôle du formel et de ľabstrait et les reconstuctions rationnelles de ľhistoire de la science.ZusammenfassungPhilosophische Fragen ïber die Angemessenheit unserer vorherrschenden Auffassungen von Rationalität im Westen sind durch die wachsende Einsicht entstanden, dass man nicht einfach Frauen als Objekte dem bestehenden Korpus unserer Sozial‐ und Naturwissenschaften hinzufügen kann. Neuere Forschungen in Psychologie und Theorien der moralischen Entwicklung legen nahe, dass unser Verstandnis der Rationalität von menschlichen Handlungen dadurch verzerrl und verdunkelt wird, dass systematische Auffassungen vom Selbst, den andern und den unter ihnen angebrachten Beziehungen als allgemein wünschbare Ziele anerkannt werden, die spezi‐fisch männlich sind. Es werden einige Implikationen dieser Forschungen t'iir die Art, wie Philoso‐phen über die Probleme der Philosophie denken, aufgezeigt – u.a. in bezug auf die Theorie der Moral, die Rolle der Formalisierung und Abstraktion, und die rationalen Rekonstruktionen der Geschichte der Wissenschaft. (shrink)

In the case of Jean-Marie Guyau, declared humanist and sociologist, there is the debt of a French thinker to English thought, ...

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

For twenty years, the renowned philosopher of science Sandra Harding has argued that science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist critique must inform one another. In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader, Harding puts those fields in critical conversation, assembling the anthology that she has long wanted for classroom use. In classic and recent essays, international scholars from a range of disciplines think through a broad array of science and technology philosophies and practices. The contributors reevaluate (...) conventional accounts of the West’s scientific and technological projects in the past and present, rethink the strengths and limitations of non-Western societies’ knowledge traditions, and assess the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. The collection concludes with forward-looking essays, which explore strategies for cultivating new visions of a multicultural, democratic world of sciences and for turning those visions into realities. Feminist science and technology concerns run throughout the reader and are the focus of several essays. Harding provides helpful background for each essay in her introductions to the reader’s four sections. Contributors Helen Appleton Karen Bäckstrand Lucille H. Brockway Stephen B. Brush Judith Carney Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment Arturo Escobar Maria E. Fernandez Ward H. Goodenough Susantha Goonatilake Sandra Harding Steven J. Harris Betsy Hartmann Cori Hayden Catherine L. M. Hill John M. Hobson Peter Mühlhäusler Catherine A. Odora Hoppers Consuelo Quiroz Jenny Reardon Ella Reitsma Ziauddin Sardar Daniel Sarewitz Londa Schiebinger Catherine V. Scott Colin Scott Mary Terrall D. Michael Warren. (shrink)

What can contemporary machine learning (ML) models do? Given the proliferation of ML models in society, answering this question matters to a variety of stakeholders, both public and private. The evaluation of models' capabilities is rapidly emerging as a key subfield of modern ML, buoyed by regulatory attention and government grants. Despite this, the notion of an ML model possessing a capability has not been interrogated: what are we saying when we say that a model is able to do something? (...) And what sorts of evidence bear upon this question? -/- In this paper, we aim to answer these questions, using the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) as a running example. Drawing on the large philosophical literature on abilities, we develop an account of ML models' capabilities which can be usefully applied to the nascent science of model evaluation. Our core proposal is a conditional analysis of model abilities (CAMA): crudely, a machine learning model has a capability to X just when it would reliably succeed at doing X if it 'tried'. The main contribution of the paper is making this proposal precise in the context of ML, resulting in an operationalisation of CAMA applicable to LLMs. We then put CAMA to work, showing that it can help make sense of various features of ML model evaluation practice, as well as suggest procedures for performing fair inter-model comparisons. (shrink)

In _Sciences from Below_, the esteemed feminist science studies scholar Sandra Harding synthesizes modernity studies with progressive tendencies in science and technology studies to suggest how scientific and technological pursuits might be more productively linked to social justice projects around the world. Harding illuminates the idea of multiple modernities as well as the major contributions of post-Kuhnian Western, feminist, and postcolonial science studies. She explains how these schools of thought can help those seeking to implement progressive social projects (...) refine their thinking to overcome limiting ideas about what modernity and modernization are, the objectivity of scientific knowledge, patriarchy, and Eurocentricity. She also reveals how ideas about gender and colonialism frame the conventional contrast between modernity and tradition. As she has done before, Harding points the way forward in _Sciences from Below_. Describing the work of the post-Kuhnian science studies scholars Bruno Latour, Ulrich Beck, and the team of Michael Gibbons, Helga Nowtony, and Peter Scott, Harding reveals how, from different perspectives, they provide useful resources for rethinking the modernity versus tradition binary and its effects on the production of scientific knowledge. Yet, for the most part, they do not take feminist or postcolonial critiques into account. As Harding demonstrates, feminist science studies and postcolonial science studies have vital contributions to make; they bring to light not only the male supremacist investments in the Western conception of modernity and the historical and epistemological bases of Western science but also the empirical knowledge traditions of the global South. _Sciences from Below_ is a clear and compelling argument that modernity studies and post-Kuhnian, feminist, and postcolonial sciences studies each have something important, and necessary, to offer to those formulating socially progressive scientific research and policy. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan's The Really Hard Problem provides a rich source of reflection on the question of meaning and ethics within the context of philosophical naturalism. I affirm the title's claim that the quest to find meaning in a purely physical universe is indeed a hard problem by addressing three issues: Flanagan's claim that there can be a scientific/empirical theory of ethics (eudaimonics), that ethics requires moral glue, and whether, in the end, Flanagan solves the hard problem. I suggest that he (...) does not, although he provides much that is of importance and useful for further reflection along the way. (shrink)

This manuscript identifies several important issues for philosophy of science at this moment in history raised in Fellows’ and Richardson’s generous comments. It also notes a couple of their assumptions that are problematic for this author, and tries to restate more clearly relevant arguments developed in Objectivity and Diversity.

A Calvinist and Anabaptist Understanding of the BanAmidst a growing renewal of interest in Calvinism and Calvin scholarship throughout the globe in the wake of John Calvin’s 500th anniversary of his birth, this article focuses on John Calvin’s early ecclesiological development. In contrast to advancing theories that Calvin developed his ecclesiological understanding of church discipline from earlier Anabaptist doctrines and leaders which he would have been exposed to intimately during his exile in Strasbourg, this article argues that Calvin had already (...) determined and articulated a well-balanced and detailed understanding of the ban before his arrival in the protestant refuge city of Strasbourg. Further, this article argues that Calvin’s sojourn and interaction with Anabaptists in Strasbourg cannot adequately explain Calvin’s ecclesiological understanding or increasing practice of Church discipline in Strasbourg or Geneva, but rather displays a vivid disparity between Calvin and the Anabaptist position on the ban which Calvin denounces as false perfectionism. (shrink)

This book provides a very accessible general introduction to the Jungian concept of ego development and Jung's theory of personality structure--the collective unconscious, anima, animus, shadow, archetypes.

This article presents a sociological perspective that suggests that technology should be seen as a means for groups to retain or rearrange social relations. Claiming, first, that the sociotechnical systems approach in technology-and-society studies often tend to bring out harmony and cooperation as an ideal and, second, that central social construc tivists tend to interpret closure and stabilization processes in terms of consensus, this article, instead, argues that technology should be regarded as the outcome of conflicting interests and ideas. To (...) make the perspective plausible, a number of analytic concepts are put forth and illustrated, some case studies are reinterpreted in conflict language, and a few tentative research hypotheses are formulated. (shrink)

Sandra Harding here develops further the themes first addressed in her widely influential book, The Science Question in Feminism, and conducts a compelling analysis of feminist theories on the philosophical problem of how we know what we ...

Where the old objectivity question asked, Objectivity or relativism: which side are you on?, the new one refuses this choice, seeking instead to bypass widely recognized problems with the conceptual framework that restricts the choices to these two. It asks, How can the notion of objectivity be updated and made useful for contemporary knowledge-seeking projects? One response to this question is the strong objectivity program that draws on feminist standpoint epistemology to provide a kind of logic of discovery for maximizing (...) our ability to block might makes right in the sciences. It does so by delinking the neutrality ideal from standards for maximizing objectivity, since neutrality is now widely recognized as not only not necessary, not only not helpful, but, worst of all, an obstacle to maximizing objectivity when knowledge-distorting interests and values have constituted a research project. Strong objectivity provides a method for correcting this kind of situation. However, standpoint approaches have their own limitations which are quite different from the misreadings of them upon which most critics have tended to focus. Unfortunately, historically limited epistemologies and philosophies of science are all we get to choose from at this moment in history. (shrink)

"The classic and recent essays gathered here will challenge scholars in the natural sciences, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and women’s studies to examine the role of racism in the construction and application of the sciences. Harding... has also created a useful text for diverse classroom settings." —Library Journal "A rich lode of readily accessible thought on the nature and practice of science in society. Highly recommended." —Choice "This is an excellent collection of essays that should prove useful in a wide (...) range of STS courses." —Science, Technology, and Society "... important and provocative... "—The Women’s Review of Books "The timeliness and utility of this large interdisciplinary reader on the relation of Western science to other cultures and to world history can hardly be overemphasized. It provides a tremendous resource for teaching and for research... "—Ethics "Excellent." —The Reader’s Review "Sandra Harding is an intellectually fearless scholar. She has assembled a bold, impressive collection of essays to make a volume of illuminating power. This brilliantly edited book is essential reading for all who seek understanding of the multicultural debates of our age. Never has a book been more timely." —Darlene Clark Hine These authors dispute science’s legitimation of culturally approved definitions of race difference—including craniology and the measurement of IQ, the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and the dependence of Third World research on First World agendas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rebellion and the SacredSacrifice in Camus's RebelBrian Harding (bio)René Girard has argued, in "Camus's Stranger Retried," that Camus's later novel The Fall represents a kind of novelistic conversion on Camus's part: an admission that the ethics of The Stranger were faulty. This is a criticism not only of a character (Mersault) but of the author's own views. In fact, on the Girardian reading, The Fall recognizes that Camus's (...) own activism was never purely altruistic, but partook of a kind of unstated competition, seeking to outstrip others in care for the downtrodden, and thereby prove his supremacy. Both Camus and Clamence, the lawyer in The Fall, recognize that (as Girard puts it)Mercy, in his hands, was a secret weapon against the unmerciful, a more complex form of self-righteousness. His real desire was not to save his clients but to prove his moral superiority by discrediting the judges.1The drama of The Fall is this realization and its ramifications. Beyond this, Girard argues, it represents Camus's judgment on his own work; it represents [End Page 29] the realization that his writings hitherto lacked self-criticism. Until The Fall, Camus revolted against everything but his pride, but in The Fall he turns his critical powers inward, writing the novel as a kind of auto-criticism. I think there is a lot of truth to this, and in what follows, it guides my interpretations of The Rebel.Girard's comments on The Plague suggest that he sees it as essentially "romantic" in the technical sense he gives that term. Like The Stranger, it falls into the illusion of authenticity and autonomy: Dr. Rieux stands apart from the city, paternalistically guiding it without succumbing to the infections circulating around him.2 To the extent that The Rebel is often paired with The Plague (in the same way The Myth of Sisyphus is joined to The Stranger) one might expect that the same could be said of that philosophical essay—that is, that it persists in a romantic delusion of being above or separate from the problems it diagnoses and that The Rebel's defense of the oppressed only serves to assuage the author's conscience, reassuring him that he is one of the good ones—just as did Clamence's work as a defense attorney.That expectation is, I think, only half right. The Rebel, I believe, oscillates between romantic lie and novelistic truth; Camus senses that he is not above the fray and that the very act of rebellion itself unleashes furies that one struggles to tame. Whether he has reached the full consciousness represented by The Fall is uncertain, but it is clear to me that, at times at least, this awareness rises to the surface in The Rebel. Indeed, the emergence and repression of this awareness are part of the book's fascination and flaws. The apparent inconstancy between Camus's lionization of rebellion and his profound worries about what it unleashes is rooted in this oscillation. Because of this oscillation, The Rebel is too complex a text to be treated in a paper of a reasonable length. To simplify matters, I focus on two parts whose interest to readers of Contagion will need no explanation: first, Camus's gnomic remarks on the relationship between rebellion and the sacred, and second, Camus's discussion of the killing of King Louis and the Terror. Following that, I close with some general remarks.REBELLION AND THE SACREDCamus's rebellion is intimately related to the sacred [le sacré]. To be sure, we should not assume that just because Camus and Girard use the same word that they mean the same thing by it. In fact, Camus primarily uses the term to refer to a religious sensibility without developing, for example, a theory of the violent origins of the sacred. Nevertheless, Camus seems to sense that there is a [End Page 30] connection between the sacred and violence. Moreover, it is of course impossible that Camus intended to refer to Girard's work when he alludes to the sacred. Nevertheless, if Girard is right about the meaning and function of the sacred... (shrink)

Feminist standpoint theory remains highly controversial: it is widely advocated, used to guide research and justify its results, and yet is also vigorously denounced. This essay argues that three such sites of controversy reveal the value of engaging with standpoint theory as a way of reflecting on and debating some of the most anxiety-producing issues in contemporary Western intellectual and political life. Engaging with standpoint theory enables a socially relevant philosophy of science.

This article examines the relationship between feminist theologies and women’s poetry and fiction. Using Sheila Hassell Hughes’ work on this same relationship as a point of departure, I contend that feminist theologians rely on literature by women for a variety of reasons, and I focus on how literature by women offers feminist theologies a multitude of examples of women’s experience, embodied experience in particular. If women’s experience is the starting point for a truly feminist theology, women’s writing seems an obvious (...) source of the theologian’s materialist and semiotic quest. (shrink)