"In this edited collection, an international ensemble of scholars examine what contemporary cinema tells us about neoliberal capitalism and cinema, exploring whether filmmakers are able to imagine progressive alternatives under capitalist conditions. Individual contributions discuss filmmaking practices, film distribution, textual characteristics and the reception of films made in different parts of the world. They engage with topics such as class struggle, debt, multiculturalism and the effect of neoliberalism on love and sexual behaviour. Written in accessible, jargon-free language, Contemporary Cinema and (...) Neoliberal Ideology is an essential text for those interested in political filmmaking and the political meanings of films."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between identities and the bicycle as portrayed in films. The analysis finds that taking the viewpoint of the bicycle emancipates the bicycle from being subjected to closure, as the constructionists would have it, and thus articulates the differences with which the bicycle can communicate to its rider. The paper examines the bicycle as depicted in three films: Premium Rush (Davis Koepp, 2012), A Sunday in Hell (Jørgen Leth, 1977) and Life on Earth (Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998). (...) It engages with the concept of ‘interpretative flexibility’ and the development of the bicycle, as examined by Wiebe Bijker and others, and argues that the interpretative flexibility of bicycles does not cease just because the high-wheeler was abandoned and the ‘safety’ bicycle was universally accepted. The fight for the role of the bicycle continues and the bicycle is subject to constant transformations in order to reconstruct it according to human needs. Andrew Feenberg’s modified constructivism is applied to re-examine the technical development of the bicycle, claiming that technology is dependent on specific social structures as well as human agency. The paper argues that just as social structures are negotiable and unfixed at any point in time, the bicycle too is never neutral but remains negotiable and unfixed. Consequently, since the bicycle constantly ‘speaks’ back to the user, there is never closure in the technical development of the bicycle. Drawing on the writings of Bruno Latour and the Deleuzian idea of assemblages, the bicycle and its rider are considered as an organic entity that is constantly forged and un-forged. Understanding the rhetoric of the bicycle machine helps the convergence of a bicycle becoming with becoming a rider, marking the bicycle as equal to its rider. Viewed in this way, the hierarchy of agency collapses and a crystallization emerges out of the rider and bicycle entwinement. (shrink)

The role of intentions in motor planning is heavily weighted in classical psychological theories, but their role in generating eye movements, and our awareness of these oculomotor intentions, has not been investigated explicitly. In this study, the extent to which we monitor oculomotor intentions, i.e. the intentions to shift one’s gaze towards a specific location, and whether they can be expressed in conscious experience, is investigated. A forced-choice decision task was developed where a pair of faces moved systematically across a (...) screen. In some trials, the pair of faces moved additionally as soon as the participants attempted to gaze at one of the faces, preventing them from ever viewing it. The results of the experiment suggest that humans in general do not monitor their eye movement intentions in a way that allows for mismatches between planned gaze landing target and resulting gaze landing target to be consciously experienced during decision-making. (shrink)

Advances in neonatology have led to improved survival for periviable infants. Immaturity still carries a high risk of short- and long-term harms, and uncertainty turns provision of life support int...

This volume offers one of the first systematic analyses of the rise of modern social science. Contrary to the standard accounts of various social science disciplines, the essays in this volume demonstrate that modern social science actually emerged during the critical period between 1750 and 1850. It is shown that the social sciences were a crucial element in the conceptual and epistemic revolution, which parallelled and partly underpinned the political and economic transformations of the modern world. From a consistently comparative (...) perspective, a group of internationally leading scholars takes up fundamental issues such as the role of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the shaping of the social sciences, the changing relationships between political theory and moral discourse, the profound transformation of philosophy, and the constitution of political economy and statistics. (shrink)

Apart from a passing reference to Kant, Grice never explains in his writings how he came to discover his conversational maxims. He simply proclaims them without justification. Yet regardless of how his ingenious invention really came about, one might wonder how the conversational maxims can be detected and distinguished from other sorts of maxims. We argue that the conversational maxims can be identified by the use of a transcendental argument in the spirit of Kant. To this end, we introduce Grice’s (...) account of conversational maxims and categories and compare it briefly with Kant’s thoughts on categories. Subsequently, we pursue a thought experiment concerning what would happen if speakers constantly broke one or another of the maxims. It seems that it would not be possible for children to recognize a significant number of lexical meanings under such circumstances. Hence, the conversational maxims are rules whose occasional application is a necessary condition of language and conversation. (shrink)

It has been reported as an ethical problem within prehospital emergency care that ambulance professionals administer physiologically futile cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to patients having suffered cardiac arrest to benefit significant others. At the same time it is argued that, under certain circumstances, this is an acceptable moral practice by signalling that everything possible has been done, and enabling the grief of significant others to be properly addressed. Even more general moral reasons have been used to morally legitimize the use of (...) futile CPR: That significant others are a type of patient with medical or care needs that should be addressed, that the interest of significant others should be weighed into what to do and given an equal standing together with patient interests, and that significant others could be benefited by care professionals unless it goes against the explicit wants of the patient. In this article we explore these arguments and argue that the support for providing physiologically futile CPR in the prehospital context fails. Instead, the strategy of ambulance professionals in the case of a sudden death should be to focus on the relevant care needs of the significant others and provide support, arrange for a peaceful environment and administer acute grief counselling at the scene, which might call for a developed competency within this field. (shrink)

The present narrative review addresses issues concerning the defining criteria and conceptual underpinnings of pain catastrophizing. To date, the concept of pain catastrophizing has been extensively used in many clinical and experimental contexts and it is considered as one of the most important psychological correlate of pain chronicity and disability. Although its extensive use, we are still facing important problems related to its defining criteria and conceptual understanding. At present, there is no general theoretical agreement of what catastrophizing really is. (...) The lack of a consensus on its definition and conceptual issues has important consequences on the choice of the pain management approaches, defining and identifying problems, and promoting novel research. Clinical and research work in absence of a common theoretical ground is often trivial. It is very surprising that clinical and experimental work has grown extensively in the past years, without a common ground in the form of a clear definition of pain catastrophizing and overview of its conceptual basis. Improving the efficacy and efficiency of pan catastrophizing related treatments requires an understanding of the theoretical construct. So far, most interventions have only demonstrated modest effects in reducing pain catastrophizing. Therefore, clarifying the construct may be an important precursor for developing more targeted and effective interventions, thereby easing some of the burden related to this aspect of pain. In our review, we have extracted and de-constructed common elements that emerge from different theoretical models with the aim to understand the concept of catastrophizing, which components can be modulated by psychological interventions, and the general role in pain processing. The analysis of the literature has indicated essential key elements to explain pain catastrophizing: emotional regulation, catastrophic worry, rumination, behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation systems, and interoceptive sensitivity. The present paper attempts to integrate these key elements with the aim to re-compose and unify the concept within a modern biopsychosocial interpretation of catastrophizing. (shrink)

During a pandemic, demand for intensive care often exceeds availability. Experts agree that allocation should maximize benefits and must not be based on whether patients could have taken preventive measures. However, intensive care units are often overburdened by individuals with severe COVID-19 who have chosen not to be vaccinated to prevent the disease. This article reports an experiment that investigated the German public's prioritization preferences during the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic. In a series of scenarios, participants were asked (...) to decide on ICU admission for patients who differed in terms of health condition, expected treatment benefits, and vaccination status. The results reveal an in-group bias, as vaccinated individuals preferred to allocate more resources to the vaccinated than to the unvaccinated. Participants also favored admitting a heart attack patient rather than a COVID-19 patient with the same likelihood of benefiting from ICU admission, indicating a preference for maintaining regular ICU services rather than treating those with severe COVID-19. Finally, participants were more likely to admit a patient to intensive care when this meant withholding rather than withdrawing care from another patient. The results indicate that lay prioritizations violate established allocation principles, presaging potential conflicts between those in need of intensive care and those who provide and allocate it. It is therefore recommended that allocation principles should be explained to enhance public understanding. Additionally, vaccination rates should be increased to relieve ICUs and reduce the need for such triage decisions. (shrink)

Different proprietary databases have been used extensively in research to assess the environmental performance and environmental risk of companies. This study explores the convergent validity of the environmental ratings of MSCI ESG STATS, Thomson Reuters ASSET4 and Global Engagement Services. The study shows that the ratings have common dimensions, but on aggregate, they do not converge. On the environmental opportunity side, KLD environmental strengths, and ASSET4 and GES environmental performance metrics correlate highly and provide convergent scores for US companies from (...) 2003–2011. On the environmental risk side, KLD environmental concerns converge with the GES environmental industry risk and company emissions from the ASSET4 database. Further analysis confirms that industry-related risks are drivers of company-specific environmental performance. (shrink)

systematicity is. Until systematicity is adequately systematicity. Most contributors to these debates have clarified, we cannot know whether classical paid little or no attention to the alleged empirical.

Refugee migration to Europe reached peak levels in 2015. During this time, more than 260,000 children applied for asylum in Germany; over 40,000 of whom arrived without parents or other legal guardians. This article takes a broadly descriptive legal approach to focus on the resulting legal and ethical problems in Germany, and to highlight a variety of ethically relevant issues within the legal system. In particular, refugee children below the legal age of 18, have special needs with regard to health (...) care, guardianship and appropriate custody, but the legal framework produces questionable inequalities that require further research. (shrink)

The growing recognition by cognitive neuroscientists that areas of vertebrate brains may be reused for multiple purposes either functionally during development or during evolution echoes a similar realization made by neuroscientists working on invertebrates. Because of these animals' relatively more accessible nervous systems, neuronal reuse can be examined at the level of individual identified neurons and fully characterized neural circuits.

Although the use of new health technologies in healthcare and medicine is generally seen as beneficial, there has been little analysis of the impact of such technologies on people's lives and understandings of health and illness. This book explores how new technologies not only provide hope for cure and well-being, but also introduce new ethical dilemmas and raise questions about the "natural" body. Focusing on the ways new health technologies intervene into our lives and affect our ideas about normalcy, the (...) body and identity, New Health Technologies explores: how new health technologies are understood by lay people and patients how the outcomes of these technologies are communicated in various clinical settings how these technologies can alter our notions of health and illness and create "new illness." Written by authors with differing backgrounds in phenomenology, social psychology, social anthropology, communication studies and the nursing sciences, this book is essential reading for students andacademics of medical sociology, health and allied studies, and anyone with an interest in new health technologies. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Rationale Argumentation" verfügbar.

Corporate sustainability is an important strategy and value orientation for marketing, but scarce research addresses the organizational drivers and barriers to including it in companies’ marketing strategies and processes. The purpose of this study is to determine levels of commitment to corporate sustainability in marketing, processes associated with sustainability marketing commitment, drivers of sustainability marketing at the functional level of marketing, and its organizational context. Using survey data from 269 managers in marketing, covering a broad range of industries in Sweden (...) and Denmark, we took a structural modelling approach to examine construct relationships, mediation, and moderation effects. Overall, the findings show that marketing capabilities associated with the innovation of new products, services, and business models constitute a strong driver to leverage sustainability marketing commitment. In conjunction with insights into processes related to the enactment of sustainability marketing, this result indicates that companies’ marketing departments have a propensity to drive corporate sustainability. The study provides substance to the idea of aligning substantive marketing capabilities closer to dynamic capabilities. Accordingly, the study reveals that reliance on market orientation alone does not lead to greater sustainability commitment. (shrink)

Companies have been experiencing increasing pressure from NGOs to overcome unethical and unsustainable behaviours. The purpose of this research was to study the interplay between supply chain transparency and NGO pressure. The analysis builds on the literature on supply chain transparency and institutional pressures. We conducted a time-lagged, multi-level regression analysis that included data from 270 fashion companies over a 5-year period to investigate the effect of NGO pressure on transparency and vice versa. The results revealed that companies with higher (...) levels of transparency are more likely to be pressured by NGOs than less transparent companies. Furthermore, our findings show that, depending on the number of campaigns, NGO power and communication about campaigns, NGO pressure can either stimulate corporate transparency or turn into a negative effect that leads to lower levels of transparency. (shrink)

Zu den politischen revolutionären Bewegungen in Europa vor 1848 gehörte auch die Gärung von «umstürzenden» Ideen gegen überkommene Gedankensysteme. Im Band werden die politische, insbesondere demokratische Opposition und die sozialen Bewegungen der vormarxschen und marxschen Arbeiter, der Frauen und der (intellektuellen) Jugendlichen untersucht.

Researchers within the educational field usually acknowledge the idea that teaching is an essentially moral activity. Yet, they seem to have different opinions on how teachers are supposed to complete that task in their everyday pedagogical practice. Jonathan Haidt has conducted a series of international studies, during recent years, revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations that evoke strong emotional reactions. Based on the results he has presented a theory, the New Syntheses, in which he claims (...) to explain the difference between the dominating moral pedagogical models and develop new approaches to teaching ethics. The present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education teachers for which we have borrowed two of Jonathan Haidts examples. We discuss the New Synthesis in relation to the results of the surveys and the ethical dimension of the teaching profession. We argue that these results indicate a need for teacher students and teachers to consciously reflect on their values and methods for approaching ethics in education. (shrink)

This study brings an organizational identity perspective to the debate regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and multinational corporations (MNCs). The basic proposition is that organizational identities warrant closer attention since they influence CSR strategies. It is further argued that a more explicit distinction between principles and practices, or between 'being' and 'doing', is needed when debating whether multiple organizational identities are required for MNCs operating in locations characterized by different stakeholder demands. In terms of identity construction, two translation processes are (...) suggested to be pertinent; from hypernorms to organizational principles and the translation of organizational principles to practices. The first translation is relevant since 'hypernorms' alone do not create the distinctiveness needed for an organizational identity to develop and the second translation helps in explaining the ability to endorse local contracts. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of two organizational context variables, codes of conduct and supervisor advice, on personnel decisions in an experimental simulation. Specifically, we studied personnel evaluations and decisions in a situation where codes of conduct conflict with supervisor advice. Past studies showed that supervisors’ advice to prefer ingroup over outgroup candidates leads to discriminatory personnel selection decisions. We extended this line of research by studying how codes of conduct and code enforcement may reduce this form of discrimination. Eighty (...) German managers evaluated and selected candidates from an applicant pool including Germans (ingroup members) and foreigners (outgroup members). Supervisor advice to prefer ingroup members lowered suitability ratings of outgroup members as well as their chances to be selected for an interview. Ethical codes of conduct referring to equal opportunities limited this form of discrimination, but only when codes were enforced by sanctions and integrated into organizational every-day practice. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

What kind of futures does agro-food imaginaries enable and who can get involved in the making of agro-food futures? In this respect, what can the increasingly influential idea of circular economy potentially offer in terms of enabling more sustainable agrofood futures? We approach this task by first outlining the interconnected challenges that the agro-food system is facing related to environmental degradation, economic crises and social problems. Then we consider the way these challenges are being addressed in agro-food studies. We argue (...) that agro-food research in recent years has seen important contributions in relation to studies of alternative food networks and the “quality” turn. These research agendas have challenged the current logic of the food system in terms of offering alternative visions of future development. We highlight two examples from the literature—the eco-economy and the integrated territorial agri-food paradigm—that develop broader frameworks for rethinking the future of the agro-food system and which have distinguished themselves in contrast to the industrialized and globalized conventional food system. We find that with respect to reorienting and reconfiguring economic structures and relations all three approaches share a common goal, but circular economy stands out in relation to the actors that are included by, for example, emphasizing collaborations and partnerships with extant agro-food businesses. Also with regards to scalar politics, it would be prudent to consider the potentials offered by the increasingly influential ideas around circular economy. (shrink)

This essay is a second attempt to reconcile the perspectives of Merleau-Ponty and Guattari, following on the examination of the unconscious in a previous issue of Chiasmi. Here the focus concerns an ontology that overcomes the dualistic heritage of Western metaphysics. More precisely, I compare the concept of flesh as Merleau-Ponty employs it in his later texts with that of the machine as Guattari uses this from the end of the 1960s until his last writings in the early 1990s. The (...) machine concerns the potential for transformation in a given social and political configuration, so that the ontology to be drawn from this concept is a thought of transformation. The position of individual subjectivity in this context is not so different from that granted to it by Merleau-Ponty in his last writings: a curvature of the flesh or, as Deleuze and Guattari write about the artisan in A Thousand Plateaus, “one who is determined in such a way as to follow a flow of matter.”Cet essai est une deuxième tentative de rapprochement des perspectives de Merleau-Ponty et de Guattari, après la problématique de l’inconscient traitée dans un précédent numéro de Chiasmi. Cette fois elle a lieu sous l’angle d’une ontologie qui surmonte l’héritage dualiste de la métaphysique occidentale. Plus précisément, je mets en comparaison la notion de chair telle que Merleau-Ponty la met en oeuvre dans ses textes tardifs et celle de machine telle que Guattari l’emploie depuis la fin des années 1960 jusqu’à ses derniers écrits du début des années 1990. La machine concerne le potentiel de transformation dans une configuration sociale et politique donnée, de sorte que l’ontologie qu’on peut tirer de cette notion est une pensée de la transformation. La position de la subjectivité individuelle dans ce contexte n’est pas très différente de celle que lui accorde Merleau-Ponty dans ses derniers écrits : une courbure de la chair, ou comme l’écrivent Deleuze et Guattari dans Mille plateaux à propos de l’artisan, « celui qui est déterminé à suivre un flux de matière ».Questo saggio è un secondo tentativo di avvicinare le prospettive di Merleau-Ponty e di Guattari, dopo quanto fatto in un precedente numero di Chiasmi attorno alla problematica dell’inconscio. Questa volta, tale raffronto sarà nella prospettiva di un’ontologia che superi l’eredità dualistica della metafisica occidentale. Più precisamente, intendo confrontare la nozione di carne, nel modo in cui essa prende corpo nei testi dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, e quella di macchina di Guattari, nella maniera in cui è caratterizzata dall’autore a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta fino ai suoi ultimi scritti dell’inizio degli anni Novanta. La macchina riguarda il potenziale di trasformazione in una configurazione sociale e politica data, e quindi l’ontologia che ne deriva implica un pensiero della trasformazione. In questo contesto, la posizione della soggettività individuale non è molto diversa da quella caratterizzata da Merleau-Ponty nei suoi ultimi scritti: una curvatura della carne, o, come scrivono Deleuze e Guattari in Millepiani a proposito dell’artigiano, “colui che è determinato a seguire un flusso di materia”. (shrink)

The psychoanalyical notion of the unconscious is often considered as being out of reach for phenomenological thinking. When Merleau-Ponty refl ects on it, he takes the unconscious as the realm, in bodily life, that being not yet conscious, is likely to become conscious. He formulates it in his Résumés de cours with the famous sentence “The unconscious is the sensing itself”. Lacan, facing this interpretation, explains that Merleau-Ponty fails to recongnize the essential discontinuity between consciousness and the unconscious. From that (...) criticism, it is possible to follow the reflection of Félix Guattari who develops, both alone and in collaboration with Gilles Deleuze, a conception of the “machinic unconscious”, a notion that can be read as an attempt to articulate the merleau-pontian and the lacanian approaches and to sketch out a theory of the becoming-subject. My aim in this paper, in speaking about “Merleau-Ponty Tomorrow”, consists therefore in appropriating some of his suggestions in this regard and to detect them in an unexpected context, thereby also noting the differences between them. Through this dialogue, I get to a position where it is possible to outline a critique of the contemporary “theory of the self”, which in myview is unaware of the fact that the self is always already caught in power relations. Guattari’s “micropolitics of desire” allows precisely to account for that and thus to develop the phenomenological approach to the self. (shrink)