One facet of the control of gene expression is long‐range promoter regulation by distant enhancers. It is an important component of the regulation of genes that control metazoan development and has been appreciated for some time but the molecular mechanisms underlying this regulation have remained poorly understood. A recent study by Cleard and colleagues1 reports the first in vivo evidence of chromatin looping and boundary element promoter interaction. Specifically, they studied the function of a boundary element within the cis‐regulatory region (...) of the Abdominal‐B (Abd‐B) gene of Drosophila melanogaster. BioEssays 29: 7–10, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics Commissions: Town Meetings with a “Blue, Blue Ribbon”Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Town meetings are characteristic of New England. In theory, a quorum of registered voters in a small municipality meets annually to decide local public policy. In fact, special interests and the town bureaucracy control the meeting.Like a town meeting, a commission (or committee or council) comes into being, whether on an ad hoc or permanent basis, to (...) direct a government function. Bioethics commissions specialize in one area: the intersection of public policy with developments, either real or anticipated, in the basic and applied sciences.That specialization of commissions carries over into the selection of the members. More often than not commission members are appointed on the basis of expertise in a specific area. Although some commissions are still made up entirely of one kind of expert, usually medical, the majority of these government bodies seek breadth between the fields of law, religion, ethics, and science (including medicine and the social sciences).In the words of Mrs. Rigenbach, the law clerk to Chief Judge Carl B. Rubin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, selection of persons “knowledgeable in the field” constitutes a “blue, blue ribbon” jury. In contrast, a “blue ribbon” jury is composed of those persons having “the greatest amount of formal education” (In re Richardson-Merrill, Inc. (Bendectin litigation), 624 Federal Supplement 1212 at 1217 (1985)). The problem with persons knowledgeable in the field is that their minds may have already been made up. For a jury, this is a disaster; for a bioethics commission, this directs and shapes the research, investigation, and discussion, or, in short, it makes for more efficient decision making.For this Scope Note, the definition of commission begins with the Bioethicsline description of its index term “advisory committees” as committees or commissions set up to advise government bodies on public policy. Furthermore, a commission [End Page 91] (or committee) receives government funding and support in exchange for its expertise in research, investigation, reporting, and recommendations.Six functions served by bioethics commissions have been clearly and succinctly described by LeRoy Walters (Commissions and Bioethics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (4): 363–68, August 1989). The functions are: (1) to legitimize action; (2) to delay action or resolution; (3) to identify duplication; (4) to be representative; (5) to do research and find facts; and (6) to provide education and support (pp. 364–65). Since 1989, however, another government function has moved to the forefront. Instead of remaining within the legislative arena, government commissions serve the judiciary as well, in cases involving complex and technical questions. The now defunct Law Reform Commission of Canada recognized this use when it included in its annual reports a section on its “Influence on Law Reform through Judicial Decisions.”In mid-1997, the United States Supreme Court in its consolidated cases on assisted suicide used extensively the writings from a state commission, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, to support its rationale. Not only did the Court make use of the Task Force’s work, but in so doing the Court extended the efforts of the commission beyond its jurisdiction of New York into another jurisdiction on the opposite coast, Washington state. Furthermore, although the commission was chartered by one state, through the federal court system, its influence became national.Outside the U.S., the United Nations recently adopted its first bioethics text on the ethics of genetic research, and Canada is reworking its human research guidelines into a single set of guidelines that will apply to research in both the natural sciences and the social sciences.This Scope Note attempts to compile for the researcher and the reference librarian those commissions, existing and defunct, that have addressed bioethics issues. Only one other such attempt is known to the author, an Office of Technology Assessment [OTA] Background Paper, Biomedical Ethics in U.S. Public Policy (1993). Due to space limitations, not all publications could be listed; the selections included represent the range of topics from a particular group or the more frequently cited sources. Future updates of this compilation are planned, so please notify the... (shrink)

Centriole duplication has been an area of interest since the late 1800s when Boveri suggested that these structures were central organizers for mitosis and cell division. Two groups1, 2 have delineated a linear pathway for centriole assembly. In C. elegans, Pelletier and coworkers1 have identified intermediates in the pathway using cryo‐electron tomography. Surprising, the first intermediate is a hollow tube of 60 nm that increases in diameter and then elongates before acquiring microtubules. Similar structures have not been observed to date (...) in other centrioles. BioEssays 29:630–634, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Neo-Humanist Luc Ferry (1995) has compared deep ecology's declarations of intrinsic value in nature to the Third Reich's nature protection laws, which prohibit maltreatment of animals having "worth in themselves." Ferry's questionable approach fails to document the relationship between Nazi environmentalism and Nazi racism. German high art and mass media historically presented nature as dualistic, and portrayed Untermenschen as unnatural or inorganic. Nazi propaganda excluded Jews from nature, and identified traditional Jews as cruel to animals. Ferry's idealization of Humanism under (...) reports the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in European thought, including the French Enlightenment. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. (shrink)

Peer review and publication is one of the factors proposed in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. as indicia of the reliability of scientific testimony. This Article traces the origins of the peer-review system, the process by which it became standard at scientific and medical journals, and the many roles it now plays. Additionally, the Author articulates the epistemological rationale for pre-publication peer-review and the inherent limitations of the system as a scientific quality-control mechanism. The Article explores recent changes in (...) science, in scientific publishing, and in the academy that have put the system under strain. The Author argues that Justice Blackmun's advice to courts - that peer-reviewed publication is relevant, but is not dispositive - is of little practical help. Instead, the Author suggests questions that courts should ask in assessing the significance of the fact that testimony is, or is not, based on peer-reviewed publication and illustrates with reference to another Bendectin case, Blum v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where some of these questions were asked. (shrink)

In contrast to the biallelic expression of most genes, expression of genes subject to genomic imprinting is monoallelic and based on the sex of the transmitting parent. Possession of only a single active allele can lead to deleterious health consequences in humans. Aberrant expression of imprinted genes, through either genetic or epigenetic alterations, can result in developmental failures, neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral disorders and cancer. The evolutionary emergence of imprinting occurred in a common ancestor to viviparous mammals after divergence from the (...) egg‐laying monotremes. Current evidence indicates that imprinting regulation in metatherian mammals differs from that in eutherian mammals. This suggests that imprinting mechanisms are evolving from those that were established 150 million years ago. Therefore, comparing genomic sequence of imprinted domains from marsupials and eutherians with those of orthologous regions in monotremes offers a potentially powerful bioinformatics approach for identifying novel imprinted genes and their regulatory elements. Such comparative studies will also further our understanding of the molecular evolution and phylogenetic distribution of imprinted genes. BioEssays 25:577–588, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In many toxic-tort cases - notably in Oxendine v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, and in Joiner v. G.E., - plaintiffs argue that the expert testimony they wish to present, though no part of it is sufficient by itself to establish causation "by a preponderance of the evidence," is jointly sufficient to meet this standard of proof; and defendants sometimes argue in response that it is a mistake to imagine that a collection of pieces of weak evidence can be any stronger (...) than its individual components. This article draws on the epistemological theory I first presented in 1993 in Evidence and Inquiry, and then amplified and refined in 2003 in Defending Science - Within Reason. This theory of evidence shows that, under certain conditions, a combination of pieces of evidence none of which is sufficient by itself really can warrant a casual conclusion to a higher degree than any of its components alone. When my account is applied to the very complex congeries of evidence typically proffered to prove general causation in these toxic-tort cases, it improves on the influential "Bradford Hill criteria" for assessing causation; and it suggests answers to questions frequently raised in such cases: e.g., whether epidemiological evidence is essential for proof of causation, and whether such evidence should be excluded if it is not statistically significant. Moreover, the argument of this paper reveals that by obliging courts to screen each item of expert testimony individually for reliability, the atomism implicit in Daubert will sometimes stand in the way of an accurate assessment of the worth of complex causation evidence. (shrink)

The virulence of a virus is determined by its ability to adversely affect the host cell, host organism or population of host organisms. Influenza A viruses have been responsible for four pandemics of severe human respiratory disease this century. Avian species harbour a large reservoir of influenza virus strains, which can contribute genes to potential new pandemic human strains. The fundamental importance of understanding the role of each of these genes in determining virulence in birds and humans was dramatically emphasised (...) by the recent direct transmission of avian influenza A viruses to humans, causing fatal infection but not community spread. An understanding of the factors involved in transmission between avian and mammalian species should assist in the development of better surveillance strategies for early recognition of influenza A virus strains having human pandemic potential, and possibly in the design of anti‐viral strategies. BioEssays 25:657–671, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The environmentally responsive molecular chaperone Hsp90 assists the maturation of many key regulatory proteins. An unexpected consequence of this essential biochemical function is that genetic variation can accumulate in genomes and can remain phenotypically silent until Hsp90 function is challenged. Notably, this variation can be revealed by modest environmental change, establishing an environmentally responsive exposure mechanism. The existence of diverse cryptic polymorphisms with a plausible exposure mechanism in evolutionarily distant lineages has implications for the pace and nature of evolutionary change. (...) Chaperone‐mediated storage and release of genetic variation is undoubtedly rooted in protein‐folding phenomena. As we discuss, proper protein folding crucially affects the trajectory from genotype to phenotype. Indeed, the impact of protein quality‐control mechanisms and other fundamental cellular processes on evolution has heretofore been overlooked. A true understanding of evolutionary processes will require an integration of current evolutionary paradigms with the many new insights accruing in protein science. BioEssays 26:348–362, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 519 The Church: Learning and Teaching. By LADISLAS ORSY, S.J. Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987. Pp. 172. $14.95. This work develops (and repeats) some of the ideas in Orsy's ar· ticle, "Magisterium: Assent and Dissent," TS 48 (1987), 473-497. One of the most neuralgic issues in the Church today is the relation· ship between the magisterium and theologians. This extended essay, notable for its irenic tone, (...) broadens the topic to a consideration of the whole church in its activity of learning and teaching. Its stated purpose is to " clarify some of the foundational concepts and to present a framework in which the interplay between the teaching authority and the whole community can be understood." In the heat of debate when lines are drawn, and each side is in danger of becoming myopic because of the intensity of focus on a given issue, each risks losing sight of the larger dialogic relationship between God and human person. To its credit, this essay counteracts this risk by describing the pattern of encounter between God and the human person. Orsy reminds us that the church in its teaching and learning responds to a mystery which always eludes absolute order and clarity even through both occur under the guidance of the Spirit. Within this dialogic interplay, the function of the episcopate is to witness to the word that God has spoken, a word always predominantly ineffable, while the task of the theologians is to penetrate into the meaning of the word through systematic theological reflection. In the three remaining chapters, Orsy discusses teaching authority, assent and dissent, and Catholic universities and academic freedom. He calls for a new hermeneutic for the interpretation of encyclicals in order to differentiate between statements of doctrine universally held, opinions of theological schools, and statements that may later be found to he erroneous. He points out the ambiguities associated with the term "ordinary magisterium," citing texts where it is the equivalent of "non-infallible," and others where it simply refers rto the manner in which a doctrine is taught. Departing from Dulles' suggestion for a dual magisterium, Orsy sketches the problems associated with the concept of a magisterium of theologians. He then cautions us against an over-simplification of the difference between fallible and non-infallible teaching which fails to account for the organic unity of Christian doctrine. As there is a dialogic interaction between God's word and human response, so is there an interplay between the bishops' witness to the truth in the Spirit and the recognition of this truth on the part of the people of God who then surrender in an act of faith. The exact nature of this obsequium fidei, however, is problematic. Orsy's identification 5!l0 BOOK REVIEWS of obsequium as a seminal locution in Lumen Gentium circumvents the dispute as to whether it means "respect" or "submission." Orsy attempts to defuse much of the emotional charge associated with the term " dissent " by noting that it is a much stronger dialectical term than such European expressions as opinion difjerent or anderer Meinung. He cautions that " to state simply that dissent from non-infallibly held doctrine is legitimate, is simplistic and incorrect " since one must note the relationship of the non-infallible doctrine to the infallible core. He concludes,that the best climate for a healthy relationship between theologians and bishops is mutual trust, a reasonable margin for honest mistakes, a recognition of limits on the part of theologians with a corresponding resolution never to call a final truth what is in reality a hypothesis. Orsy notes that history witnesses to the perils of theologians being subject to correction by their peers only. He points out that theologians should perhaps return to the practice of investigating questions rather than defending theses. The dangers associated with dissent include the possibility of the propositional dissent of a theologian becoming a feeder to a deeper attitudinal dissent in others or in some other way threatening the peace or unity of the church. It is difficult to see how anyone can take issue with such a balanced approach to this sensitive topic. In order to indicate how a university can... (shrink)

The hemidesmosome is a complex junction containing many proteins. The keratin cytoskeleton attaches to its cytoplasmic plaque, while its transmembrane elements interact with components of the extracellular matrix. Hemidesmosome assembly involves recruitment of α6β4 integrin heterodimers, as well as cytoskeletal elements and cytoskeleton-associated proteins to the cell surface. In our cell culture models, these phenomena appear to be triggered by laminin-5 in the extracellular matrix. Cell interaction with laminin-5 apparently induces both phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of subunits of α6β4 integrin. There (...) is emerging evidence that such events are necessary for subsequent cytoskeleton anchorage to the hemidesmosome cytoplasmic plaque. Once assembled, the hemidesmosome plays an essential role in maintaining firm epithelial adhesion to the basement membrane, with hemidesmosome disruption being a hallmark of certain devastating blistering diseases. However, the hemidesmosome is more than just a stable anchor, as it may also be the site of signal transduction, mediated by its α6β4 integrin component. This review discusses our current knowledge of the structure and assembly of the hemidesmosome. BioEssays 20:488–494, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The case of Dr. Nancy Olivieri, the Hospital for Sick Children, the University of Toronto, and Apotex Inc. vividly illustrates many of the issues central to contemporary health research and the safety of research participants. First, it exemplifies the financial and health stakes in such research. Second, it shows deficits in the ways in which research is governed. Finally, it was and remains relevant not only in Toronto but in communities across Canada and well beyond its borders because, absent appropriate (...) policies, what happened in Toronto could have happened (and could well still happen) elsewhere. In Part One of this paper, we review the facts of the Olivieri case relevant to the issues we wish to highlight: first, the right of participants in a clinical trial to be informed of a risk that an investigator had identified during the course of the trial and the obligation of the investigator to inform participants (both her own and those of other investigators); and second, the obligation of institutions to protect and promote the well-being of research participants as well as academic freedom and research integrity, the obligations of research sponsors to inform participants, research regulators, and others about unforeseen risks, and the obligations of research regulators to ensure that participants are informed of unforeseen risks and to otherwise protect and promote research integrity. In Part Two, we relate these facts and issues to New Zealand and Australia. We also make detailed recommendations for changes to the various instruments used for the governance of research involving humans in Australasia. (shrink)

This book/CD package guides readers and listeners on a journey through Franz Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, in which the composer set the poetry of Wilhelm Muller to music. The complete text of the 24 poems is presented in both German and English, with 116 b&w photographs of winter scenes on the facing pages. An introductory essay by Susan Youens offers a critical examination of the song cycle. The music CD features a new recording of Winterreise, performed by baritone Paul (...) Rowe and pianist Martha Fischer. Oversize: 10.25x10.25". Annotation 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In this important book, Susan Hurley sheds new light on consciousness by examining its relationships to action from various angles. She assesses the role of agency in the unity of a conscious perspective, and argues that perception and action are more deeply interdependent than we usually assume. A standard view conceives perception as input from world to mind and action as output from mind to world, with the serious business of thought in between. Hurley criticizes this picture, and considers (...) how the interdependence of perceptual experience and agency at the personal level (of mental contents and norms) may emerge from the subpersonal level (of underlying causal processes and complex dynamic feedback systems). Her two-level view has wide implications, for topics that include self-consciousness, the modularity of mind, and the relations of mind to world. The self no longer lurks hidden somewhere between perceptual input and behavioral output, but reappears out in the open, embodied and embedded in its environment. Hurley traces these themes from Kantian and Wittgensteinian arguments through to intriguing recent work in neuropsychology and in dynamic systems approaches to the mind, providing a bridge from mainstream philosophy to work in other disciplines. Consciousness in Action is unique in the range of philosophical and scientific work it draws on, and in the deep criticism it offers of centuries-old habits of thought. (shrink)

This essay attempts to elaborate a political theory of capital’s violence. Recent analyses have adopted Karl Marx’s notion of the “primitive accumulation of capital” for investigating the forcible methods by which the conditions of capital accumulation are reproduced in the present. I argue that the current scholarship is limited by a certain functionalism in its theorization of ongoing primitive accumulation. The analytic function accorded to primitive accumulation, I contend, can be better performed by the concepts of “capital-positing violence” and “capital-preserving (...) violence.” In coining these new concepts, I first refine the conceptual core of primitive accumulation as the coercive capitalization of social relations of reproduction, which falls into sharpest relief in the violent history of colonial capitalism. I then elucidate this conceptual core with reference to Carl Schmitt’s account of European colonial expansion and Walter Benjamin’s reflections on law-making and law-preserving violence. The resultant concepts of capital-positing and capital-preserving violence, I conclude, can illuminate both the historical and the quotidian operations of the politico-juridical force that has been constitutive of capitalism down to our present moment. (shrink)

This article traces the "dialogue" between the work of the philosophers Luce Irigaray and Emmanuel Levinas. It attempts to construct a more nuanced discussion than has been given to date of Irigaray's critique of Levinas, particularly as formulated in "Questions to Emmanuel Levinas" (Irigaray 1991). It suggests that the concepts of the feminine and of voluptuosity articulated by Levinas have more to contribute to Irigaray's project of an ethics of sexual difference than she herself sometimes appears to think.

Adalet hem klasik hem de modern dönemde tasavvuf ve siyasetin önde gelen konularından biridir. Özellikle tasavvuf ve siyaset alanlarında, adalet kavramı olmadan sürdürülebilir bir düşünce yapısı kurmak mümkün değildir. Adalet, genellikle siyasetle ilişkilendirilse de İslam Hukuku'nda da çok önemli bir yer tutar. İslam Hukuku, adaletin sağlanması ve korunmasını temel amaçlarından biri olarak görür. Adalet, İslam Hukuku'nda sadece bireyler arasındaki ilişkilerde değil, aynı zamanda devletin ve toplumun düzeni ve refahı için de hayati bir öneme sahiptir. Bu nedenle, İslam Hukuku'nun temel prensiplerinden (...) biri adalettir ve bu prensip, İslam toplumlarında adaletin sağlanması ve korunması için çeşitli yollar ve kurumlar oluşturmuştur. İslam Hukuku’nda önemli bir yere sahip olan adalet kavramının tasavvuf ilmiyle de bağlantılı olarak ele alınması konunun farklı perspektiflerini görme açısından önem arz etmektedir. Zira tasavvuf, içsel bir dönüşüme ve manevi arayışlara yoğunlaşan bir ilimdir ancak adalet kavramı da bu bağlamda önemli bir yer tutar. Tasavvufi öğretiler, bireyin iç dünyasında denge ve adaletin sağlanması gerektiğini vurgular. Bu denge ve adalet, kişinin nefsiyle mücadelesinde, Allah'a olan bağlılığında ve diğer insanlarla ilişkilerinde kendini gösterir. Tasavvuf geleneği, bireyin içsel adaleti sağlamasını ve dengesini bulmasını ifade ederken, aynı zamanda dış dünyada adil davranışları teşvik eder. Bu nedenle, tasavvufun adaletle ilişkisi hem bireysel hem de toplumsal düzeyde önemli bir rol oynar. Söz konusu ilişkiyi anlamak, tasavvufun insanların manevi ve toplumsal hayatlarına nasıl etki ettiğini anlamak açısından kritiktir. Esasında tasavvuf-adalet ilişkisini kuran çalışmalar, adalet kavramına ve uygulamalarına daha derin manalar yüklemeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı da zikredilen hususla beraber tasavvufun adalet anlayışını ve bu anlayışın günlük hayata nasıl yansıdığını anlamak ve açıklığa kavuşturmaktır. Zira böylelikle insanlar hem bireysel hem de toplumsal düzeyde daha adil bir yaşam sürmeye yönelik kapsamlı bir anlayış geliştirebilirler. Çalışmanın diğer bir amacı ise mutasavvıfların adalet hakkındaki düşüncelerinin anlaşılmasına ve günümüzdeki adalet tartışmalarına katkı sağlamaktır. Araştırmada yöntem olarak bilhassa tasavvuf ilminin önde gelen teorisyenleri kabul edilen mutasavvıfların adalet konusundaki görüşleri esas alınmıştır. Dolayısıyla özellikle Hâris b. Esed Muhâsibî (öl. 243/857), Sehl b. Abdullah Tüsterî (öl. 283/896), Muhammed b. İbrahim Kelâbâzî (öl. 380/990), Ebû Tâlib el-Mekkî (öl. 386/996), Ebû Nuaym el-İsfehânî (öl. 430/1038), Abdülkerîm b. Hevâzin Kuşeyrî (öl. 465/1072), Muhammed b. Gazzâlî (öl. 505/1111), Muhyiddîn İbnü’l-Arabî (öl. 638/1240), Mevlânâ Celâledddîn-i Rûmî (öl. 672/1273) gibi önemli mutasavvıfların fikirleri araştırmanın kapsamını oluşturmuştur. Bu bağlamda söz konusu mutasavvıfların eserlerinde adalet kavramını nasıl ele aldıkları, adaletin dini ve toplumsal boyutlarına verdikleri önem, içsel denge, merhamet, teslimiyet ve toplumsal adalet gibi prensiplere verdikleri vurgu gibi konular araştırılmıştır. Böylelikle tasavvuf geleneğinin adalet anlayışının derinliği ve kapsamlılığı ortaya konmuştur. Sonuç olarak söz konusu mutasavvıfların adalet anlayışının dışsal hukuk sistemlerinin yanı sıra içsel denge, merhamet, teslimiyet ve toplumsal adalet gibi derin ve kapsamlı prensiplere dayandığı görülmüştür. Zira onlar adaleti sadece yasalara uymakla değil, aynı zamanda insanların iç dünyalarında denge, merhamet ve teslimiyetin varlığında da görmüşlerdir. Nitekim toplumsal adaletin sağlanması, sadece cezaların belirlenmesiyle değil, aynı zamanda insanların birbirlerine karşı merhametli, adil ve teslimiyet içinde olmalarıyla da gerçekleşir. Bu nedenle, mutasavvıfların adalet anlayışı dışsal hukuk sistemlerinin ötesinde, derin ve kapsamlı bir perspektife sahiptir. (shrink)

Bu makale, kelâm söyleminde modern argümantasyon teorilerinin kullanılması gerektiğini savun- maktadır. İslam geleneği kendi istidlâl teorilerine sahip olsa da modern terminoloji ve teoriler, yorumlayıcı anlayış ve eleştirel analize yardımcı olabilir. Bu makale, Kâdî Abdülcebbâr’ın (ö. 415/1025) Hıristiyanlığa karşı kelâm ve reddiye geleneklerindeki aklî yöntemleri kullandığı Tesbît’ine odaklanmaktadır. Yine, Kâdî Abdülcebbâr’ın Hıristiyanlıktaki “İsa’nın ilahî doğası” iddiasına karşı delillerini örneklerle tahlil etmekte- dir. Makale, tarihî kelâm metinlerinin istidlâlî açıdan incelenmesi gerektiğini; ayrıca delile dayalı kelâmın tarihini ve gelişimini anlamada hem analitik teorilerin hem (...) de argümantasyon teorilerinin ne kadar önemli olduğunu tartışmaktadır. (shrink)

This work investigates the possibility of iʿrâb (parsing) simple texts by utilizing simple grammar rules in the case of I’râb al-Awâmil al-mi’a. I'râb, which is the 'application of grammar on texts', is an operation of reinforcing the knowledge of grammar from one perspective, and an attempt to under-stand the text from another. Since I’râb al-Awâmil al-mi’a is the iʿrâb of al-Awâmil al-mi’a, which is a brief grammar treatise, it is clear that this iʿrâb is intended to reinforce grammar knowledge. Moreover, (...) it indicates the level of knowledge to be reinforced, as is evident from the text. We think that examining such iʿrâb works in terms of the applicability of iʿrâb, will provide data to the field of grammar teaching. The work is currently available in manuscript and consists of the object text and the author's iʿrâb. The object text of the work, al-Awâmil al-mi'a, is a textbook and the target reader of the book is beginners. It is naturally assumed that both al-Awâmil al-mi'a and its parsing were written for the same level. This work examines the validity of this assumption. In order to determine whether the rules used in the parsing are simple or complex, it was necessary to create a measure of simplicity. Three measures of simplicity have been created. If the grammatical rules used in parsing are: limited to the rules in al-Avâmil, or if they are within the frame of the main topics of grammar or if the author does not address controversial issues during the application of the iʿrâb, then they are simple rules. Moreover, in order to facilitate the achievement of our goal, we divided the sentences into simple and complex sentences, and selected our data mostly from complex sentences. We simplified complex sentences by dividing them into two types: sentences with missing elements and sentences that are semantically connected. We created a second dataset by adding some examples other than the complex sentence types. We selected the other sentence types that make up the second dataset from sentences that contain elements that al-Awāmil al-mi'a does not include. The mentioned datasets examined by utilizing the measure of simplicity that we created and the degree of complexity of the grammatical rules used in I'râb al-Awâmil al-mi'a, was revealed. (shrink)

Este artículo busca discutir las conexiones entre el racismo y la educación matemática que reciben los estudiantes negros en el aula de matemáticas urbana en la ciudad de Newark. El racismo continúa existiendo en este mundo y ha sido reformado de manera sistemática en nuestra sociedad, y con estas reformas existe desigualdad en la educación matemática de calidad ofrecida a los estudiantes negros y, como resultado, menos oportunidades futuras en campos relacionados con las matemáticas. Este artículo destacará las experiencias del (...) autor y los datos analizados de los estudiantes de Newark. Para conectar estas experiencias con los sistemas racistas actuales, primero se analiza una breve historia de los orígenes del racismo, así como las implicaciones de las identidades raciales y cómo eso puede afectar a ciertos grupos de personas. Luego se explica un marco conceptual que se utilizó para analizar las experiencias el cual incluye los conceptos de: identidad racial, identidad matemática y primeros planos. Luego se discuten diferentes temas de racismo en la educación, como la aparente desconexión entre el racismo y la educación matemática, aunque existen disparidades y desigualdades en las oportunidades matemáticas ofrecidas y la forma en que se representa a los negros en la sociedad en general. El artículo finaliza con una revisión del análisis de datos para conocer las perspectivas de los estudiantes y sus pensamientos sobre la raza y la educación matemática que reciben. (shrink)

Through a discussion of Agnès Varda's career from 1954 to 2008 that focuses particularly on La Pointe Courte (1954), L'Opéra-Mouffe (1958), The Gleaners and I (2000), and The Beaches of Agnes (2008), this article considers the connections between Varda's filmmaking and her femaleness. It proposes that two aspects of Varda's cinema—her particularly perceptive portrayal of a set of geographical locations, and her visual and verbal emphasis on female embodiment—make a feminist existential-phenomenological approach to her films particularly fruitful. Drawing both directly (...) on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and on some recent film- and feminist-theoretical texts that have employed his insights, it explores haptic imagery and feminist strategy in The Gleaners and I, the materialization of space characterizing Varda's blurring of fiction and documentary, and the dialectical relationship of people with their environment often observed in her cinema. It concludes that both Varda's female protagonists and the director herself may be said to perform feminist phenomenology in her films, in their actions, movement, and relationship to space, and in the carnality of voice and vision with which Varda's own subjectivity is registered within her film-texts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 431 Cynthia Belmont and Angela Stroud Bugging Out: Apocalyptic Masculinity and Disaster Consumerism in Offgrid Magazine Popular conceptions of survivalism in the United States typically feature the eccentric, backwoods, working-class figures found in television shows such as Doomsday Preppers and Prepper Hillbillies. Offgrid magazine, which first hit the stands in the summer of 2013, however, sells a compellingly (...) bourgeois personal connection to disaster in the vein of men’s self-improvement literature, wherein successful masculinity requires courage, preparedness for calamity, and the resources to shop. Each issue of Offgrid focuses on a “real-life” survivalist or a singular catastrophic event that is dramatically represented on the cover by a self-sufficient man decked out in gear that will allow him to survive a crash landing, escape a city devastated by an earthquake, navigate the hazards of a hacker-created blackout, or evade the destruction of an erupting volcano.1 Filled with articles offering tips on how to prepare, self-defense strategies, profiles of survivalists, disaster scenarios, gear reviews, and advertisements, Offgrid mainstreams prepper culture by retooling the The authors contributed equally to this article; the order listed is alphabetical and should not be construed as implying differing contributions. 1. The terms “survivalist” and “prepper” apply to anyone committed to honing the skills and acquiring the resources required to survive in any context, including disasters, and are used interchangeably in Offgrid. 432 Cynthia Belmont and Angela Stroud face of apocalyptic survival as a regular-guy protagonist whose low-profile normalcy disguises the smoldering heroic potential that will ignite within him when disaster strikes. In this article, drawing upon insights from the sociology of masculinity, environmental feminism, and ecocriticism, we examine the representation of gender, nature, and disaster in issues of Offgrid, spanning nearly three years, from June 2015 through February 2018. While vivid depictions of cataclysm might seem provocative enough to captivate the Offgrid reader, we argue that its principal appeal is that it gives its ninety -one-percent male audience the opportunity to engage directly in what Casey Kelly terms “apocalyptic manhood,” an emergent version of American masculinity that “confirm[s] the necessity of masculine skills as society meets its demise.”2 Thus, Offgrid provides an occasion for readers to salvage a masculinity that feels perpetually threatened within contemporary American culture—a highly effective strategy in promoting the expansion of what we term disaster consumerism. We concur with ecofeminist Greta Gaard’s contention that “masculine gender identity has been constructed as so very antiecological, and thus its interrogation and transformation seem especially crucial” at this time of environmental crisis; this concern resonates particularly poignantly with regard to the apocalyptic imaginary.3 Marketing Disaster, Selling Masculinity Scholars have long argued that commercial media play an important role in circulating gender ideals that are “rooted in consumer capitalism wherein profit can be produced by generating insecurity about one’s body and one’s consumer choices.”4 Of course, despite their influence, advertisers do not create insecurities out of whole cloth; rather, they operate within the context of shifting gender discourses and cultural anxieties. Whereas the authors of a 2005 study found that alcohol ads portrayed men as affable losers who, rejected by strong women, 2. “2018 Recoil Offgrid Media Kit,” Recoil Offgrid; Casey Ryan Kelly, “The Man-pocalypse: Doomsday Preppers and the Rituals of Apocalyptic Manhood,” Text and Performance Quarterly 36, no. 2–3 (2016): 96. 3. Greta Gaard, Critical Ecofeminism (New York: Lexington Books, 2017), 167 (italics in original). 4. Susan M. Alexander, “Stylish Hard Bodies: Branded Masculinity in Men’s Health Magazine,” Sociological Perspectives 46, no. 4 (2003): 551. Cynthia Belmont and Angela Stroud 433 were driven to drink with their buddies, an analysis of Super Bowl commercials just five years later demonstrated that the tone had become “a simpler, angrier one [that was] crafted to galvanize men to buy.”5 The authors of the latter study suggest that the masculine aggression in the ads they analyzed reflects men’s economic insecurities, which advertisers exploit by encouraging men to feel nostalgic for and frustrated about their diminished power. Ads telling men to “wear the pants” and take a stand... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:158 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra and Tania Pérez-Bustos Careful Speculations: Toward a Caring Science of Forensic Genetics in Colombia Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) has recently opened up the question of care as a set of practices related to the sustainability of life.1 The field of feminist studies more broadly has extensively 1. This literature mostly comes from (...) Northern contexts and started to flourish with the seminal work of María Puig de la Bellacasa, “Matters of Care in Technoscience: Assembling Neglected Things,” Social Studies of Science 41, no. 1 (2010): 85–106. This essay gathers scattered feminist STS reflections on these issues and looks at them through the lens of care, including authors such as Susan Leigh Star, Donna Haraway, Isabelle Stengers, Hilary Rose, and Annemarie Mol. The concept of care orienting this exercise of rereading these authors is proposed by Berenice Fisher and Joan Tronto, “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring,” in Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives, ed. Emily K. Abel and Margaret K. Nelson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 35–62. Before and after that essay came out, Puig de la Bellacasa published several other papers related to this issue, including “Touching Technologies, Touching Visions. The Reclaiming of Sensorial Experience and the Politics of Speculative Thinking,” Subjectivity 28, no. 1 (2009): 297–315; “‘Nothing Comes without Its World’: Thinking with Care,” The Sociological Review 60, no. 2 (2012): 197– 216; “Ethical Doings in Naturecultures,” Ethics, Place & Environment 13, no. 2 (2010): 151–69; “Making Time for Soil: Technoscientific Futurity and the Pace of Care,” Social Studies of Science 45, no. 5 (2015): 691–716; and Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017). All these publications have been widely cited by other authors, particularly in a special issue of Social Studies of Science on the politics of care published in 2015 (volume 45, issue 5). Other examples María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra and Tania Pérez-Bustos 159 studied how care, and associated practices such as transnational care chains, are feminized and precarious—involving an ethos embodied by those who actively work to maintain or preserve another’s life. Feminists have focused on the politics of care embedded in invisible jobs related to aesthetics, domestic work, child and elder care, and sexual activities and see all these tasks as related to the reproduction of life and culture.2 Central to this conceptualization of care is the understanding that these jobs are typically women’s work. There is a common association between this care and notions of “motherhood” as it relates to values such as compassion, love, and respect, which have been constructed as universally feminine. However, the main goal of feminist studies of care has been to deconstruct this association, particularly because it is imbued with the white, wealthy, heteronormative ideal of femininity that underlies a gendered division of labor. The reality is that class, race, nation, and gender determine who cares for whom, whether or not labor is paid, and to what extent care is exploitative. One strand of recent research problematizes both valorizing and criticizing care practices on the grounds that they are based on a rather homogeneous understanding of the feminine. Instead, these scholars seek to resurrect valuable feminist work without relying on essentialism of authors contributing to this discussion on care as an ethos for science include Ruth Müller and Martha Kenney, “Agential Conversations: Interviewing Postdoctoral Life Scientists and the Politics of Mundane Research Practices,” Science as Culture 24, no. 4 (2014): 537–59; Charis Thompson, Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013); and Carrie Friese, “Realizing Potential in Translational Medicine: The Uncanny Emergence of Care as Science,” Current Anthropology 54 (S7): S129-S138. 2. From Latin America, see, for example, Luz Gabriela Arango Gaviria, Adira Amaya Urquijo, Tania Pérez-Bustos, and Javier Pineda Duque, eds., Género y cuidado: teorías, escenarios y políticas (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2018); Pascale Molinier and Luz Grabriela Arango Gaviria, eds., El trabajo y... (shrink)

Catharine MacKinnon's investigation of the role of sexuality in the subordination of women is a logical culmination of radical feminist thought. If this is correct, the position of her work relative to radical feminism is analogous to the place Parmenides's work occupied in ancient Greek philosophy. Critics of MacKinnon's work have missed their target completely and must engage her work in a different way if feminist theory is to progress past its current stalemated malaise.

Why has humankind developed so differently from other animals? How and why did language, culture, religion, and the arts come into being? In this wide-ranging and ambitious essay, Christoph Türcke offers a new answer to these timeworn questions by scrutinizing the phenomenon of the dream, using it as a psychic fossil connecting us with our Stone Age ancestors. Provocatively, he argues that both civilization and mental processes are the results of a compulsion to repeat early traumas, one to which hallucination, (...) imagination, mind, spirit, and God all developed in response. Until the beginning of the modern era, repetition was synonymous with de-escalation and calming down. Then, automatic machinery gave rise to a new type of repetition, whose effects are permanent alarm and distraction. The new global forces of distraction, Türcke argues, are producing a specific kind of stress that breaks down the barriers between dreams and waking consciousness. Türcke’s essay ends with a sobering indictment of this psychic deregulation and the social and economic deregulations that have accompanied it. (shrink)

This book examines how the early Christian elite articulated and cultivated the affective dimensions of compassion in a Roman world that promoted emotional tranquillity as the path to human flourishing. Drawing upon a wide range of early Christians from both east and west, Wessel situates each author in the broader cultural and intellectual context. The reader is introduced to the diverse conditions in which Christians felt and were urged to feel compassion in exemplary ways, and in which warnings were sounded (...) against the possibilities for distortion and exploitation. Wessel argues that the early Christians developed literary methods and rhetorical techniques to bring about appropriate emotional responses to human suffering. Their success in this regard marks the beginning of affective compassion as a Christian virtue. Comparison with early modern and contemporary philosophers and ethicists further demonstrates the intrinsic worth of the early Christian understanding of compassion. (shrink)

Toys to overcome time, distance, and gravity -- To fly like a bird, not float like a cloud -- Finding a place in the world -- A new continent -- A new age-old problem to solve -- The physics of miniature worlds -- Models of wings and models of the world -- A world made of facts.

Spontaneous play, important for forming the basis of friendships and peer relations, is a complex activity involving the management and production of talk-in-interaction. This article focuses on the intricacies of social interaction, emphasizing the link between alignment and affiliation, and the range and importance of verbal and nonverbal interactive devices available to children. Analysis of the way in which two girls, one of whom has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, engage in spontaneous activities demonstrates the potential for interactional difficulty due (...) to the unscripted nature of the interaction. The article argues for further research into how improvised, unscripted interactions are initiated within moment-by-moment talk, how they unfold, and how they are brought to a close in everyday contexts in order to understand how children create their social worlds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 363 Ashley Glassburn Falzetti What Makes an Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholar? Preparing for the Unknown in a Skill-centered Curriculum I first read the 1998 special issue of Feminist Studies “Disciplining Feminism? The Future of Women’s Studies” in a monthly reading group of scholars from across the globe working on PhDs in women’s, gender, feminist, and/or queer studies (WGFQS).1 We (...) began meeting informally in the halls of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) annual conference, discussing how our training compared and what sort of support was out there for scholars dissertating in WGFQS.2 What surprised us most while we re/read these articles was that the concerns about the field had not changed much in the twelve years that had passed since their original publication. Now that twenty years have passed, the concerns remain even though some of the controversies are settled. Despite claims about the impossibility of the women’s studies PhD, doctoral programs have flourished. In their introduction to the 1998 special issue, Nancy Hewitt and 1. I use WGFQS PhDs to refer to people who have earned a PhD from an interdisciplinary WGFQS doctoral program. The majority of WGFQS doctoral programs were founded on the ideals of interdisciplinarity. Some doctoral programs retained a joint-degree model that honors the multi-disciplinary origins of the field by requiring a major in a disciplinary field, such as English, history, psychology, or law. 2. The most active participants of this group included Sonja Thomas (who coordinated the discussions), Jennifer Musto, Stephanie Clare, Evangeline Heiliger, and Laura Foster. 364 Ashley Glassburn Falzetti Susan S. Lanser focus on the relationship between disciplinary formations and the possibility of formal preparation to conduct interdisciplinary research.3 As graduate programs were expanding, the role of methods in curriculum centered concerns over the efficacy of interdisciplinary training. Now that a critical mass of PhDs is trained in interdisciplinary WGFQS, a new understanding of the role of methods is emerging. Interdisciplinary feminist questions require scholars to employ new research skills regularly throughout their careers, thus preparing junior scholars to ask and answer questions well is more efficient than studying a range of methods. The Problem of Methods Throughout the early literature on WGFQS, there is slippage between discussing interdisciplinary methods and feminist methodology.4 Methods refer to the techniques researchers use to gather data, what Sally Kitch and Mary Margaret Fonow define in their study of WGFQS dissertations as “a technique for gathering evidence.”5 Feminist methodologies involve the ethical, political, and epistemological concerns that mark research as a distinctively feminist approach to inquiry. Slipping between discussions of feminist methodologies (on the dynamics of power, representation, and knowledge production) and disciplinary methods (how researchers gather data) has contributed to the sticky association of feminist interdisciplinarity as a “problem of methods.” Vivian May, one of the earliest WGFQS PhDs and former NWSA president, argues that the continued attachment to such disciplinary parameters “defused that potential” of interdisciplinarity as a means of transforming feminist modes of knowledge production.6 Arguments that feminist interdisciplinarity could be a more just or a more contextually objective 3. Nancy Hewitt and Susan S. Lanser, “Preface,” Feminist Studies 24, no. 2, special issue, “Disciplining Feminism? The Future of Women’s Studies” (Summer 1998): 236. 4. In addition to the 1998 special issue of Feminist Studies, see NWSA Journal 12, no. 2 (Summer 2000) and response essays across feminist studies journals between 2000 and 2003. 5. Sally L. Kitch and Mary Margaret Fonow, “Analyzing Women’s Studies Dissertations: Methodologies, Epistemologies, and Field Formation,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 1 (Autumn 2012): 99–126. 6. Vivian May, “Disciplinary Desires and Undisciplined Daughters,” NWSA Journal 14, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 144. Ashley Glassburn Falzetti 365 approach to inquiry fueled the desire to build WGFQS PhD programs; however, the concern that interdisciplinarity is always already undisciplined led many departments to rely on disciplinary methods training when designing curriculum. The focus on methods as a means to interdisciplinarity assumes that traditional disciplines are best suited to intellectual inquiry or at least that WGFQS scholars need a disciplinary rationale for... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to outline an ethics development activity that uses scenarios in university classes to further the knowledge, engagement, and enhancement of the ethical actions of the students. By starting with a brief review of the objective and use of scenarios in ethics research, the paper progresses to explain the activity, debrief the activity, and finally to provide an analysis of the activity with examples. Included in this activity are ways to incorporate a discussion of Kant’s (...) Categorical Imperative Theories, NCA Credo of Ethical Communication, and the use of videos for Milgram’s Blind Obedience and Stanford’s Prison studies—thus making this activity useful across all disciplines. (shrink)