This study examines the impact of returnee executives on top management teams' (TMTs') unethical management behavior (e.g., excess perquisite consumption). Synthesizing insights from upper echelons theory and the psychological entitlement literature, this study proposes that returnee executives cause TMTs to generate a high degree of psychological entitlement, which subsequently leads to a high degree of excess perquisite consumption in their firms. In addition, this study proposes that returnee chief executive officers, product diversification, and regional institutional development moderate the aforementioned relationships (...) by influencing managerial discretion. This study provides empirical evidence for the above view using a dataset that was constructed based on 1960 listed Chinese manufacturing companies from 2010 to 2019. From a psychological entitlement perspective, this study confirms, for the first time, that the introduction of returnee executives may have unintended negative consequences, for example, in promoting the excess perquisite consumption activities of TMTs. (shrink)

Since Xi Jinping has taken office in 2012, China’s political repression has only but intensified so that the regime is definitively turning away from the 1990s legal reforms and the many expectations that followed in terms of rule of law and other rights fostering. In replacing these recent developments in a larger perspective including that of a “socialist harmonious society”, which had already shaded a particular light on Chinese reforms, this article proposes to envisage contemporary Chinese legal culture in an (...) evolutionary and theoretical framework. In doing so, it stresses the tensions between a language of rights now fully integrated by the Chinese citizens and the politics of law used, in a last legal ditch struggle, by the Chinese Communist Party as a tool for social stability in disciplining the people by all means including by the threat of its very legal creations. It then concludes in reflecting upon the legal culture emerging out of this great divide between the people and the State. (shrink)

Résumé L’ouverture des archives du Saint-Office pour le pontificat de Pie XI montre qu’une première alerte a touché le couvent d’études du Saulchoir en 1932. Dénoncé par deux frères étudiants, il a été l’objet d’une enquête dont les réponses apportent une vive lumière sur les divergences au sein de la « grande famille des thomistes ». Cette enquête aboutit à un non-lieu au moment précis où le Saulchoir reçoit le chapitre général de l’Ordre qui confère la maîtrise en théologie à (...) l’un des professeurs suspectés, le père Marie-Dominique Chenu, qui en devient aussitôt régent. (shrink)

In 1925, the French Jesuit geologist, paleontologist, and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was removed from his teaching position at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He spent most of the next twenty years in China and his major theological writings were not published during his lifetime. We have uncovered major new archival sources on the investigation of Teilhard by the Jesuit curia and the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church. These include the Six Propositions to which he was required (...) to subscribe, which are here published and analyzed for the first time, along with his subscription. Associated correspondence, including a letter written by Teilhard to the Jesuit superior general Wlodimir Ledóchowski, enables a fuller understanding of Teilhard's response to the investigation of him. Moreover, comparison with similar investigations into other theologians in the first half of the 1920s allows an assessment of how the complex power dynamics between the Jesuit curia, the Holy Office, and Pope Pius XI shaped the outcome. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionFrom the closing decades of the fourteenth century onwards, reform attempts within the various religious orders gained impetus under the banner of so-called Observant movements. In nearly all orders, these Observant movements advocated a return to the lifestyle of an imagined pristine beginning in the face of a real or perceived crisis.1Within the Clarissan world, there were a number of signs pointing towards such a crisis. Adherence to the (...) rule, as well as a viable form of communal religious life could be conspicuously absent by the later fourteenth century. This was not solely the result of failing religious stamina, due to the interference of lay benefactors or sheer lack of motivation among the choir nuns. From the later 1340s onwards, many religious houses suffered heavily from recurrent Plague epidemics and the effects of prolonged military campaigns.This was particularly visible in some areas in France that were touched by the Plague and the Hundred Years War. In Toulouse, the Clarissan monastic community was reduced from around 80 women in 1330 to just four by 1370. Other houses more or less disappeared altogether because of the Plague, as was the case in Carcassone, Lavaur, Narbonne and Samatan, and had to be refounded. The Clarissan monasteries of Auterive, Béziers, Boisset, Les Cassés, Gourdon, and Le Pouget were heavily damaged or completely destroyed by warfare, and needed rebuilding.2In many cases, surviving nuns from destroyed monasteries extra muros moved into town. They had to restart their community life under very difficult circumstances. To make ends meet, the women sometimes had to engage in forms of economic exploitation of their goods that were not in line with the requirements of their rule. To make up for extreme losses in population and revenue, they also had to resort to recruitment practices that brought in people not equipped to embrace the vows of poverty, abstinence and obedience.There was no uniformity in the ways in which reforms were initiated. Nor did they always have the same results. This becomes clear as soon as we take into account the choice for a specific rule, the implementation of additional reform constitutions and convent statutes, and the role played by nuns and abbesses, secular authorities, secular clergymen and, of course, leading Observant and non-Observant friars of the Franciscan order.The Tordesillas congregationAn early attempt at reform in Castile resulted in a congregation named after the Poor Clare monastery at Tordesillas. This royal foundation had been created around 1363 to perform intercessory prayers on behalf of Pedro I of Castile and his new wife Maria of Padiella. The house was well endowed, and papal privileges freed the house from episcopal oversight, in line with important Urbanist houses elsewhere.3 In 1377, this autonomy was augmented, when Pope Gregory XI, ‘for certain reasons’ , freed the house from control from the Franciscan provincial minister.4 This might have been motivated by thoughts towards religious reform.5In any case, the new Castilian ruler Juan I was not content with the nuns’ intercessory works for the royal family. He obtained several papal bulls from the Avignon Pope Clement VII to entice the monastery to return to its former “observance” of the rule and its prayer obligations. These bulls made the Franciscan confessor of the king, friar Fernando of Illescas, perpetual visitator of the Tordesillas house, with full powers for the duration of his life.6 He could remove the abbess from office and enter the monastic enclosure to correct abuses. He could also absolve nuns and monastic personnel from sins and excommunication, as well as appoint and dismiss confessors and deliver punishments.7From 1410 onwards, the Tordesillas reform model began to attract other monasteries, which coagulated into the reform congregation of Santa Maria la Real or Santa Clara de Tordesillas. By 1447.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52  Reviews FREEDOM ISN’T ACADEMIC W B Educational Studies / U. of British Columbia Vancouver, , Canada   .@. Conrad Russell. An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism. London: Duckworth, . Pp. . £. (hb). Academic Freedom. London and New York: Routledge, . Pp. xi, . £. (pb). ho is the intelligent person of the first title? Is it the brainy (...) reader who Wknows about liberalism, and merely wants to update her knowledge? Is it the clever author who offers a guide out of the goodness of his heart? Or more likely, is it the sharp publisher, who knows a good selling point when he or she sees one? One guesses it is the publisher. But as to the present volume, few will complain of the title’s ambiguity, for it entices readers into an compact, well written, and timely argument on political matters of the first importance. Conrad Russell was the author of Academic Freedom, a well regarded and similarly compressed discussion of academic freedom. Academic Freedom preceded the Guide to Liberalism by six years. It was as though Russell had first to taste and see the awful effects of neo-conservatism in his beloved University of  Conrad Russell has a world reputation as an historian of the English Civil War, of the whole seventeenth century, and of the social history of politics before . His several books and hundreds of articles and reviews show that he had an apparently effortless mastery of most world history since the Reformation. I have been unable to deal with Conrad’s historical output in this review, but have discussed it in a forthcoming biographical essay about Conrad Russell in the Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly, “Conrad Russell as Political Intellectual”, forthcoming in . _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52 Reviews  London and then, six years later—after due reflection upon the whole horrid mess—to provide a compelling political remedy to the evil apparatus of Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Major. Academic Freedom, a sister volume to the Guide, dealt with the intellectual and administrative liberty that university teachers must have if their work is to be academically viable and socially valuable. Already in , Academic Freedom offered a sharp attack on the Thatcherite use of league tables and performance indicators, and on high civil servants, vice-chancellors, and government ministers who rely on the numbers. In effect, accountants and managers and long lists of numbers had overtaken much that universities did. Academic Freedom ended with a straightforward prescription: university teachers and (on occasion) responsible administrators should make the hard academic decisions to which they are called—not civil servants, not numbercrunchers, not politicians. This view did not mean elected politicians were released from the burden of honest choice and decision, particularly in regions of governance and public life for which they had direct responsibility and care. But Russell’s point remained: it would be madness if statistical tables replaced responsible and able human beings, or if those human beings accepted that they must become automatic “decision machines”. Conrad Russell died on  October , but must have had a form of prescience. For in , more than thirty academic units and fields were eliminated in United Kingdom universities on grounds of efficiency, ranking in league tables, and performance indication. Each time the administrator concerned threw up her hands, claiming she had no choice, as the league table or the last Research Assessment Exercise “made me do it”. Up the line, politicians have gone further, even rejoicing in the New Management of British higher education and the pleasant prospect of even greater “efficiencies” in the next decade. Conrad Russell well understood that freedom is not just academic. An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism relies, then, on recent political history to provide its main narrative thrust. By the mid-point of the book, one has the impression that current events have shaped his liberalism, and that his understanding of the history of liberalism is “presentist”. But Conrad Russell starts by saying that he doesn’t pretend to be writing history (or philosophy) in his Guide. To call Conrad Russell “presentist” is to underplay... (shrink)

I shall be dealing with not only Sections X and XI but also Part II of Section VIII and Part III of Section XII. Of all this material we have, anywhere in the originally anonymous and later emphatically disowned Treatise of Human Nature, Hume's first book, nothing more than at most hints. But in a surviving letter, written while he was still working on the manuscript of that Treatise, Hume wrote: ‘I am at present castrating my work, that is, cutting (...) off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I would not pretend to put it in the Doctor's hands’. Enclosed with this letter were some ‘Reasonings concerning Miracles’, which must have anticipated what became Section X of our Enquiry. Presumably there were other excised anticipations also. The ‘Doctor’ mentioned was a Doctor of Theology, Joseph Butler, soon to be appointed Bishop of Durham; an office open in that period only to believing Christians. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at AthensWilliam C. WestA. Geoffrey Woodhead. The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XVI, Inscriptions: The Decrees. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1997. xx 1 531 pp. 1 plan. 32 pls. Cloth, $100.A. G. Woodhead characterizes his work as “a still (...) photograph, extracted from a process of discovery, discussion, and reevaluation constantly in motion... a representation of the status rerum... at the end of 1991” (viii). Nonetheless, this is a remarkable book. It reprints and discusses up-to-date texts of Athenian decrees from the Agora and classifies them in five sections: (1) to the fall of Athens in 404 B.C.; (2) from one restoration of democracy to another, 403/2-307/6 B.C.; (3) the “Macedonian Century,” 307/6-201/200 B.C.; (4) Athens and the Roman Republic, 200–86 B.C.; and (5) Athens in the Roman Empire, 86 B.C.-A.D. 203 (xi). The reader is thereby helped to an appreciation of Athenian diplomacy and bureaucracy within the framework of recognized historical periods. [End Page 458]A total of 342 inscriptions are presented: 28 in section 1; 78 in section 2; 149 in section 3; 76 in section 4; and 10 in section 5. Two phases of Agora excavation are represented: 1931–45 and 1946–67. After each section an appendix on material discovered after 1967 lists new discoveries with appropriate references. New studies and new texts are assimilated in the presentation of each item up to the end of 1991. Decrees of the Athenian state form the bulk of the collection, but decrees of other bodies, such as demes, gene, orgeones, etc., are also included. Excluded by intention (vii) are the decrees on councilors and their officers (Agora XV) and the decrees honoring ephebes.For each item Woodhead gives an extensive lemma, with brief description of the stone, dimensions of the letters, and bibliography of previous texts and works contributing to their understanding. Each text is followed by a commentary. He frequently comments on the lettering and style of engraving before entering upon discussion of individual lines.For section 1, the fifth century, the texts of IG I3 (1981) are printed, but for the others, in sections 2–5, the best available text is chosen. Where a new fragment of an old text has been discovered in the Agora, the full text of the entire inscription is given. As many decrees were set up on the Acropolis, it is clear that some material was “thrown or brought down from the citadel for reuse” (3). In the case of the Brea decree (no. 7), the contribution of the Agora fragment is slight, but in that of the treaty between Athens and Argos of 417/6 (no. 19) it is significant, providing the length of the line, 76 letters.When an archon is cited in the prescript of an Agora decree, Woodhead supplies a full discussion of the archonship, seeking to show how opinion was formed concerning the date of the office and the calendar. The earliest to be discussed is Polyzelos, 367/6 B.C. (section 2); the latest, Flavius Macrinus, A.D. 116/17 (section 5).In section 2, the fourth century to 307/6, Woodhead calls attention (41) to the spread of Athenian bureaucracy in the increased detail in the prescripts of decrees, the appearance of new formulae, such as that indicating hortatory intent (cf. A. S. Henry, ZPE 112 [1996] 105–19), and stock phrases enumerating the merits of laudandi in honorary decrees. The inevitable restoration of in the prescript of no. 101 brings in this formula for the first time in Agora decrees, although it is known from elsewhere “as early as 334/3” (154). The Agora contributes very significant decrees on the nomothesia (nos. 73, 75, 106C) and Athens’ regulation of the Eleusinian Mysteries (nos. 56, 57).The next section, 307/6 to 201/200, represents for Athens “the high-water mark of its bureaucracy” (167). The texts classified here attest the variety of documents... (shrink)

A crucial tenet of virtue-based or expertise-based theorizing about politics is that there are ways to identify and select morally and epistemically excellent people to hold office. This paper considers historical challenges to this task that come from within Greek and Confucian thought and political practice. Because of how difficult it is to assess character in ordinary settings, we argue that it is even more difficult to design institutions that select for virtue at the much wider political scale. Specifically, we (...) argue that the vast majority of proposals that purport to select for virtue are either (a) unlikely to be effective, (b) not implementable at the scale of most current nations, or (c) have already been incorporated into most democratic states. Thus defenders of meritocratic institutions should take more seriously the practical barriers that will almost certainly arise when trying to implement these proposals at scale. Historical proponents of meritocratic values were well aware of concerns about the feasibility of their political ideals, and we should be too. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John Gregory and the Invention of Professional Medical Ethics and the Profession of Medicine by Laurence B. McCullough, John Gregory’s Writings on Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine ed. by Laurence B. McCullough, Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment: John Gregory, Thomas Percival and Benjamin Rush by Lisbeth HaakonssenHeiner F. KlemmeLaurence B. McCullough. John Gregory and the Invention of Professional Medical Ethics and the Profession of Medicine. Dordrecht, (...) Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Pp. xv + 347. Cloth, $140.00.Laurence B. McCullough, editor. John Gregory’s Writings on Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Pp. xi + 254. Cloth, $105.00.Lisbeth Haakonssen. Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment: John Gregory, Thomas Percival and Benjamin Rush. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997. Pp. x + 247. Paper, $20.50.The Scottish Enlightenment is widely appreciated for its contributions to philosophy, economics, sociology, law, chemistry, and medicine. The ideas and theories advanced by Hume, Smith, Millar, and Ferguson are still widely debated. John Gregory (1724–1773), important in his own time, is not as well known as some of his friends and colleagues. He was professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1766 to 1773, where he taught introductory lectures on the theory and practice of medicine. A set of extensive student notes from these lectures, entitled Observations on the Duties and Offices of a Physician, appeared anonymously in 1770. Two years later, Gregory himself published a revised version of his lectures under the title Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician. These two books are said to mark the beginnings of professional medical ethics in the English-speaking world. They are also sometimes characterized as having anticipated bioethics.McCullough’s comprehensive John Gregory and the Invention of Professional Medical Ethics and the Profession of Medicine is the first modern intellectual biography of Gregory. Based on extensive research into eighteenth-century institutional context and the study of hitherto unknown manuscripts, he gives a full account of Gregory’s education at Edinburgh and Leiden, and his practice and teaching of medicine at Aberdeen, London, and Edinburgh. He stresses the importance of Gregory’s membership in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and his close contact with Mrs. Montagu and her Circle for the understanding of his medical ethics. McCullough also shows that Bacon’s experimental method had a decisive influence on Gregory. Gregory took over Bacon’s three offices or ends of medicine: preservation of health, prolonging of life, and curing of diseases. In 1772, perhaps anticipating his premature death from hereditary gout, he added a fourth office, namely easing the pain of dying. Gregory referred mainly to Bacon (and Reid) in his Lectures to make clear how we can enlarge our medical knowledge by the method of experience and observation, pointing out that the progress of medicine had been seriously retarded by the way in which it was taught since Hippocrates. He also thought it was handicapped by the view that only professionals [End Page 535] should practice it, and claimed that even quacks have their advantages because their interest and reputation seldom suffer from the failure of the experiments necessary for the improvement of the medical profession.Gregory also argued that we should regard medicine not as a trade but as an art. In this context the principle of sympathy (or humanity) became important for him. Sympathy was the basis of the central duties in his Lectures. In a time of extreme instability of manners, when medicine was regarded more as a trade than an art, there was no physician-patient relationship based on the epistemological and moral authority of the physician. According to McCullough, it was Gregory who created “the physician-patient relationship as fiduciary. The virtues of the physician as fiduciary—openness to conviction, tenderness, and steadiness—provided for him the moral causes that would gather physicians together into a group worthy of the name, ‘profession,’ in its intellectual and moral senses” (265). The physician should no longer view his patients as moral strangers.McCullough claims that Gregory’s medical ethics is not just of historical interest, providing bioethics with its own history. It is also of... (shrink)

Book I: Before -- The origin -- Book II: Genesis -- Here goes nothing -- The light at the end of the tunnel -- Directions -- The geography of nowhere -- Book III: In residence -- Foyer -- Living room -- Dinner party -- East Room -- West Wing -- A room of one's own -- The children's hour -- In the garden -- Reflecting pool -- Book IV: Public library -- Dictionary of nothing -- The reading room -- Writers' (...) room -- In the stacks -- Samuel Beckett -- Italo Calvino -- E.M. Cioran -- Edmond Jabès -- Thomas Merton -- Rumi -- William Shakespeare -- Poets' corner -- Through a glass darkly -- The classics -- Book V: Concert Hall -- Overture -- Silence of the spheres -- Symphonies of silence -- Moments of silence -- The audience -- Book VI: School -- Knowing nothing -- The joy of unknowing -- Mathematics -- The arts -- Science sutra -- Creative thinking -- Paradoxical logic -- Master class -- Recess -- Final exam -- Book VII: Museum -- Permanent collection -- The moderns -- Warhol retrospective -- Gallery of blind spots -- In studio -- Nothing is beautiful -- Book VIII: Theater district -- Comedy tonight -- Mostly mystery -- Sing along -- In the wings -- Theater of the absurd -- Book IX: House of worship -- Nothing is sacred -- Seminary -- House of doubt -- Practicing nothing -- Book X: Downtown -- City hall -- At the office -- Inn on Main Street -- Restaurant -- Corner bar -- Wall Street -- Book XI: City limits -- This way out -- Tunnel at the end of the light -- Cemetery -- Last words -- After lite. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52 Reviews  HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS C P Philosophy / Purdue U. West Lafayette,  ,  @. Scott Soames. Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Vol. : The Dawn of Analysis; Vol. : The Age of Meaning. Princeton: Princeton U. P., . Pp. xix, ; xxii, . . (hb), . (pb) for each volume. he last twenty years have seen (...) an explosion in books and papers on RusTsell ’s philosophy and its contemporary significance. There is good reason to think that this will continue as the contents of the Collected Papers are digested by Russell scholars and as more specialists contribute to the history of analytic philosophy more generally. Given all this good news, it is disconcerting to find a -page discussion of Russell, in a well-reviewed book by a first-rate philosopher, repeating many of the errors and misconceptions about Russell that scholars have worked so hard against. Soames’ discussion of Russell in the volumes under review is in fact so distressing that it alone compromises the book as a suitable introduction to the history of analytic philosophy. After briefly reviewing the outline of the two volumes, I discuss the errors concerning Russell, and conclude by drawing some lessons for Russell scholarship. Soames’ focus is on what he takes to be the most important and influential work of analytic philosophers, beginning with Moore’s Principia Ethica and ending in  with Kripke’s Naming and Necessity lectures. Kripke, in fact, marks the culmination of one of the two great achievements of analytic philos- _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52  Reviews ophy that Soames sees in this period: … the two most important achievements that have emerged from the analytic tradition in this period are (i) the recognition that philosophical speculation must be grounded in pre-philosophical thought, and (ii) the success achieved in understanding, and separating one from another, the fundamental methodological notions of logical consequence, logical truth, necessary truth, and apriori truth. (: xi) Moore is credited with the methodological innovation required by (i), as once we accept that what we think we know prior to philosophical reflection is a constraint on our epistemology, Moore’s response to scepticism, which Soames endorses, inevitably follows. But even Moore, and nearly every other figure that Soames discusses, is guilty of confusing necessity, analyticity and apriority. Soames endorses Kripke’s basic point that necessity is a metaphysical concept that can come apart from the epistemic notion of apriority and the semantic category of analytic propositions. Volume  repeats this charge several times, using it to undermine Moore’s views on ethics in Part One, Russell’s conception of analysis in Part Two, and logical positivism in Part Three. It is noteworthy that Soames takes Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic as representative of logical positivism, ignoring contemporary scholarship on the Vienna Circle just as much as he ignores Russell scholarship. Part Four reconstructs Wittgenstein’s views in the Tractatus and Volume  ends with a discussion of Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. The second volume begins with a part on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. This paves the way for Soames’ discussion of ordinary language philosophy in Parts Two and Three, which Soames sees as closely tied to the later Wittgenstein. Ryle’s Concept of Mind, Strawson’s early views on truth, Hare’s theory of goodness as well as Malcolm’s paradigm-case argument and Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia are investigated in these chapters. Part Four presents Grice’s theory of conversational implicature as the final nail in the coffin of ordinary language philosophy. In Part Five, Soames returns to Quine, this time discussing the ambitious arguments of Word and Object and the more general project of naturalized epistemology. Part Six articulates Davidson’s program for constructing a theory of meaning for natural languages along the lines of a Tarskistyle theory of truth, and Volume  ends with an extended discussion of the promise and limitations of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity. The material on Russell is entirely confined to four chapters in Volume : Chapter : “Logical Form, Grammatical Form, and the Theory of Descriptions ”, Chapter : “Logic and Mathematics: The Logicist Reduction”, Chapter : “Logical Constructions and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political ChangeWilliam WalkerProfessional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change, by Stanley Fish; xi & 146 pp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, $22.00 paper.Our greatest living Miltonist, Professor Fish, continues to address the most hotly contested issues of the profession of literary criticism in prose which, if perhaps not quite the best in Anglo-American literary studies as he once judged it to be, is certainly (...) distinguished by coherence, power, and wit. In this version of material he presented in a workshop at the Folger Library in 1990 and as the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford University in 1993, Fish analyzes the relationship between literary criticism and political change. By literary criticism, he means the activity of determining what a literary text means. According to Fish, while in the eighteenth century just about any kind of commentary on literature counted as literary criticism, the determination of the meaning of literature is the essential job of literary criticism in the twentieth century. By political change, Fish means changes in things such as the way governments spend money, treat their citizens and foreign governments, establish the civil law, and appoint people to office. The major claim of the book is that doing literary criticism in the United States today rarely causes political change. The counsel he offers to all those literary critics who want to bring about political change through their literary work is thus to find a new job: “if you want to send a message that will be heard beyond the academy, get out of it” (p. 2).But why can’t observing that Lycidas means that Milton is afraid of women help to overthrow patriarchy and the legal/cultural system which continues to perpetuate it? Because, Fish claims, “there are, at present, no well-established routes by which literary criticism is first brought to the attention of those who inhabit the centers of power and then presented to them in a way that ties it to their concerns” (p. 52). That is to say that it is because American society is structured in a particular way that literary interpretive acts are politically inconsequential. Though he does not provide much evidence for this big claim about the structure of American society and its relation to literary criticism, Fish does support it by asking us to see the absurdity of imagining otherwise: “think about it. You are about to open a new business or introduce a bill in Congress or initiate an advertising campaign, but you pause to ask yourself, ‘What would the readers of Diacritics say?’” (p. 91). This is not to say that the segregation of literary work from political work is a given of the human condition. Fish cites Renaissance England and contemporary Israel as cases of societies structured in such a way that literary acts have immediate and important political consequences (though literary acts and political acts in these societies are still clearly distinct because their purposes are still different). The point is just that, because American society is currently structured as it is, the activity of identifying the meaning of works of literature is rarely [End Page 544] relevant to political change. The point holds even when one shifts the center of literary work from determining the meaning of literature to (i) observing how literature and the act of professing it are deeply implicated in society-wide structures of power and legitimization, or (ii) observing and “transcending” the boundaries between literary criticism and other disciplines. That is to say that even if one were to transform literary criticism in the way new historicists and several proponents of cultural studies whom Fish cites propose, work in this discipline would still rarely cause significant political change. For the contingent fact is that, regardless of what academics do, think they do, and intend to do, “no one cares very much about literary criticism outside the confines of its professional practice” (p. 55).But if literary criticism cannot, at least for the moment in the U.S., do significant political work, and if, as Fish also claims, it cannot do significant moral, cultural work (making people better, preserving the best that is said... (shrink)

Zhu Xi is the most important of the twelfth-century neo-Confucianists. Some consider him second only to Confucius himself in his importance to Chinese philosophy as a whole, since it is his interpretation of Confucius that has been canonical since his lifetime. This short book, modeled after the Burton Watson "Basic Writings" volumes for Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi, is an accessible, one-volume introduction to Zhu Xi's influential philosophical system designed especially for course use. In "classifying" Zhu Xi's conversations in the (...) Classified Conversations of Master Zhu, Li Jingde dedicated the first thirteen chapters to conversations explaining his general philosophical system. Readers are introduced to his metaphysics of principle (li), psychophysical stuff (qi), spiritual beings (guishen), human nature (xing), mind-heart (xin), and emotions (qing); and to his program of self-cultivation-that is, the curriculum that Confucians should follow to attain moral perfection. Gardner argues that these chapters constitute the best overview of Zhu Xi's basic philosophical teachings, and selections from them form the basis of his volume. Occasionally, they are supplemented with passages from the Collected Literary Writings of Master Zhu and from Zhu's commentaries on the Classics. (shrink)

Research based on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) argues that firms will actively adopt strategic actions to respond to performance that falls below aspirations, that is performance shortfalls. However, most previous studies have focused on market-related strategic actions, paying less attention to the impact of performance shortfalls on non-market-related strategic actions, especially corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). In this study, we propose that firms facing performance shortfalls are likely to reduce CSR levels and increase (...) CSI levels. In addition, we also propose that board characteristics (board size, board age and board tenure) have a significant moderating effect on the above relationship. Empirical analyses based on an unbalanced panel data of China's listed firms from 2010 to 2018 show that our arguments are largely supported. (shrink)

The outbreak of COVID-19 is a public health crisis that has had a profound impact on society. Stigma is a common phenomenon in the prevalence and spread of infectious diseases. In the crisis caused by the pandemic, widespread public stigma has influenced social groups. This study explores the negative emotions arousal effect from online public stigmatization during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on social cooperation. We constructed a model based on the literature and tested it on a sample of (...) 313 participants from the group being stigmatized. The results demonstrate: (1) relevance and stigma perception promote negative emotions, including anxiety, anger, and grief; (2) the arousal of anger and grief leads to a rise in the altruistic tendency within the stigmatized group; and (3) stigmatization-induced negative emotions have a complete mediating effect between perceived relevance and altruistic tendency, as well as perceived stigma and altruistic tendency. For a country and nation, external stigma will promote the group becoming more united and mutual help. One wish to pass the buck but end up helping others unintentionally. We should not simply blame others, including countries, regions, and groups under the outbreak of COVID-19, and everyone should be cautious with the words and actions in the Internet public sphere. (shrink)

This article reports a critical discourse analysis of the legitimation strategies used in two Chinese government white papers about trade frictions between China and the United States. Drawing on the legitimation framework advanced by van Leeuwen to political discourse, it shows how the white papers use four main legitimation strategies: authorization, moralization, rationalization, and integration. It argues that the Chinese government uses these strategies to legitimate its responses to US trade policy and delegitimate the US government’s motives for initiating/escalating tensions. (...) This article also discusses how the use of these legitimation strategies draws from certain traditional Chinese cultural values, such as Confucianism, the culture of face, and collectivism. This article is a part of a larger research project studying discursive strategies in trade friction discourse and hopes to shed light on the attributes and functions of this type of discourse. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of ethical leadership on followers’ subjective and objective career success from a P-E fit perspective. Specifically, the mediating effects of demands-abilities fit, needs-supplies fit, and person-organization fit in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee subjective and objective career success were investigated. We collected two-wave data from 160 employees and used hierarchical regressions to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that ethical leadership had a positive effect on employee career satisfaction, (...) mobility, and promotability. Moreover, employee demands-abilities fit mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and career mobility and promotability; needs-supplies fit and person-organization fit mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employee career satisfaction. Theoretical and empirical implications were discussed. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether and how the disclosure tone of earnings conference calls predicts future stock price crash risk. Using US public firms’ conference call transcripts from 2010 to 2015, we find that firms with less optimistic tone of year-end conference calls experience higher stock price crash risk in the following year. Additional analyses reveal that the predictive power of tone is more pronounced among firms with better information environment and lower managerial equity incentives, suggesting that extrinsic motivations for truthful (...) disclosure partially explain the predictive power of conference call tone. Our results shed light on the long-term information role of conference call tone by exploring the setting of extreme future downside risk, when managers have conflicting incentives either to unethically manipulate disclosure tone to hide bad news or to engage in ethical and truthful communication. (shrink)

Xi Chen explores the question of why there has been a dramatic rise in and routinization of social protests in China since the early 1990s. Drawing on case studies, in-depth interviews and a unique data set of about 1,000 government records of collective petitions, this book examines how the political structure in Reform China has encouraged Chinese farmers, workers, pensioners, disabled people and demobilized soldiers to pursue their interests and claim their rights by staging collective protests. Chen suggests that routinized (...) contentious bargaining between the government and ordinary people has remedied the weaknesses of the Chinese political system and contributed to the regime's resilience. Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China challenges the conventional wisdom that authoritarian regimes always repress popular collective protest and that popular collective action tends to destabilize authoritarian regimes. (shrink)

Van Aarde, AG - Scheffler, EH 1988. Suffering in Luke's Gospel (Bladsy 183).Hattingh, LJ - Steenkamp, JJ 1987. Die Wêreldraad van Kerke se bemoeienis met die rassevraagstuk in Suid-Afrika. 'n Historiese analitiese oorsig van die periode 1950-1970 (Bladsy 190).