This article offers a detailed analysis of the penalties imposed on Cn. Calpurnius Piso pater in AD 20 after he had been posthumously convicted of maiestas . Piso was accused of leaving his province without permission and then returning to try to retake it after the death of Germanicus in AD 19. He was also believed by many to be implicated in the death of Germanicus. The details of his case have been revealed by a new inscription from Spain, the (...) Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, which was first published in 1996. Part of this long and well-preserved inscription records the post-mortem sanctions against memory imposed by the senate and Tiberius on Piso after his suicide. The verdicts for his family members and accomplices are also included. The decree was posted on bronze in the major cities of the Empire and in the winter quarters of all the legions. The article argues for the following conclusions. The decree should be taken at face value and its punishments considered harsh for a member of the Roman office-holding élite. It was widely published throughout the Empire after there had been extravagant mourning for Germanicus. Consequently, it seems that post-mortem disgrace did not necessarily involve the family as a whole. Indeed, sanctions against memory appear to be consciously designed to preserve the Roman élite family, its assets, and social position by removing its erring member. Such sanctions reveal both a tension and an accommodation between remembering and forgetting, between the family and the community, between history and memory. (shrink)

Bloodbending is sometimes referred to as the “puppetmaster technique” because it is the only bending art whose focus is on the direct manipulation and control of a target. Incarcerated in a maximum‐security prison designed specifically to hold waterbenders, Hama was powerless to resist her captors due to their restriction of any liquid that could be used to bend. The bending styles in Avatar: The Last Airbender draw their inspiration from real‐world Chinese martial arts. Karl Friday describes satsujinken in a more (...) complicated way: “when a combatant uses force of will to overpower, immobilize, and strike down an opponent before he can react, this is called ‘setsunin‐to’”. It could be a perfect description of bloodbending as practiced by Hama: a use of already established and morally neutral techniques for the domination and overpowering of a person for egoistic aims. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guest Editors' NoteKevin Taylor (bio) and Johnathan Flowers (bio)Welcome to this special fall 2021 issue of Education & Culture. we are pleased to bring you the second installment of this special three-part issue on Deweyan approaches to contemporary issues at the intersection of data and technology.In his extensive writings on philosophy and technology, Luciano Floridi has argued that "the time has come to translate environmental ethics into terms of (...) infosphere and informational entities, for the land we now inhabit is not just the earth."1 This may be appropriate from a Deweyan perspective as Dewey's approach to aesthetic experience focuses on the living organism within its environment and we have become digital humans in digital environments. Our digital world feels unstable because it is in constant change, but Dewey reminds us that "all interactions that effect stability and order in the whirling flux of change are rhythms. There is ebb and flow, systole and diastole: ordered change."2 The rhythms of our digital world pervade all experience in what he termed "doing and undergoing." We are swimming in a sea of data and leaving behind what investigative reporter Julia Angwin terms data pollution.3 But in the data-driven world, that data pollution is collected, analyzed, and monetized by big data tech firms in a kind of societal harm that threatens digital democracy.Whereas part one saw contributions from five scholars throwing curriculum and technology into sharp relief, this issue asks questions such as "Where ought we to begin?", "What does feminist pragmatism have to tell us about the pandemic and online teaching and learning?", and "Do the aims and means of data and technology align with human experience?"John Machielsen's "Responsible Imagineering: John Dewey's Pluralistic Ethics and Technological Innovation" seems like a good place to begin. Machielsen argues for placing Dewey's ethics at the starting point from which technological innovation can flourish. Driven by Deweyan concepts of intelligence, education, and imagination, Machielsen explores, among other themes, socially disruptive technology from the perspective of pragmatists who constantly reconstruct concepts and values through the process of Deweyan inquiry. Human beings are imaginative and plastic with regard to problem solving, and what is needed here is to keep the barriers between technology and everyday life porous so that we do not risk compartmentalizing them as distinctly different realms.In the next two essays, we turn our attention to the growing concerns surrounding intelligent technology in online educational environments. Great strides have been made in the field of artificial intelligence, and intelligent technology has inserted itself into various aspects of data and technology, such as machine learning that creates personalized learning paths for students. Whether these technologies fall under the [End Page 1] category of algorithms, machine learning, or artificial intelligence, they raise questions about their potential impact on teaching and learning.Olivier Del Fabbro is also suspicious of the current state of intelligent technology in his article, "How to Teach Machines in Artificial Intelligence: Technical Education in John Dewey, Gilbert Simondon, and Machine Learning." Citing the Google machine learning model that classified African Americans as gorillas, Del Fabbro utilizes Dewey and Gilbert Simondon to argue that the human–machine relationship is still immature and at risk of creating an alienated situation out of undesirable bad habits. Intelligent technology requires constant care by engineers and programmers to form good habits and adapt to social life if their aims are to align with Deweyan pedagogy.As Del Fabbro focuses on intelligent technology, the human dimension of online learning comes under scrutiny in two articles that adopt feminist pragmatist methods. Krissah Marga B. Taganas's article, "Feminist-Pragmatist Perspectives on Online Education: Challenging and Changing Online Educational Conversation," rightfully acknowledges how the pandemic has magnified existing inequalities in society. The rapid migration to online learning was necessarily expedited in the face of uncertainties surrounding public health, but how do educators migrate classes that were not designed with online learning in mind to begin with? Dewey emphasized schools as sites and tools for change, but how does online education provide an optimal social environment for learning? Taganas utilizes feminist pragmatism as an important philosophical resource to... (shrink)

In this paper, we present a design tool, the positioning cards that we have developed, validated, and used in different projects. These cards are built to allow CI4CG and Participatory Design researchers to discuss the political alignment of design projects, in iterative processes of design involving people in the definition of the technological features to be implemented. The background of the cards is the conceptualization of contemporary participatory design as public design, (...) engaging with societally relevant phenomena outside the traditional environment of the workplace. To engage with such an extended dimension of participatory design, we frame our contribution in the contemporary form of capitalism, stressing how contemporary capitalism dispossess the wealth created by social production. In this context, we argue, CI4CG designers need to engage deeply with the theoretical implications of their work. To support this effort, we built the cards combining a political perspective oriented toward nourishing the common—the ensemble of the material and symbolic elements tieing together human beings—with the “affect turn” in the social sciences—therefore including affective dimensions like joy, sadness, and desire in the design of CI4CG technologies. In the final part of the article we discuss how we have used the cards in four different projects. (shrink)

Bringing Flowers HomeWe try to put a bandage on the wound,offering a vague apology:Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.Towers turn out to have been built on sand.Regimes collapse. No use in asking whywe ripped the bandage off that bleeding wound.An earthquake followed by a hurricane,fires, floods: they've passed some of us by.Us. And who is we? And what is home?Last week an enormous yellow moonhung low in a corner of the sky.Beauty is no bandage for the wound,hole in (...) the future much too big to mendor even to imagine, though we tryto camouflage it, bringing flowers home.You said, when we were talking of the end,that no one teaches us to say goodbye,or how to ease the bandage from the wound.Forgive me, death. I brought these flowers home.Moving the PianoCompact, gleaming, black and white,this sturdy Yamaha uprightstood staunchly in one room for yearsuntil, maneuvered through several doorstoday by two young slender menand up a ramp into their van,it ventured briefly out into the world again.The change of space, the space of change:the walls look naked, empty, strange.Heavy has given way to light.Habitual soliditytoo familiar to seeyields to possibilitytoo unfamiliar to see.Late and early, early, late,end, beginning—all are swirledinto a mist that veils the world.The black and white of status quoblends to a color I don't know,transition that I cannot name,but I salute it all the same.Goodbye, piano, and hello.So where is the piano going?Where will it find another life,music and memories unpackedin an unfolding second act?North Carolina, near a riverwhose stream, like time, is always flowing.My son lives there with his wife.Beloved, nothing is forever.You can't step twice into this life.Nap at Stony PointMy cousin and my friendon their respective recent deathbedsslid from my mind. I noticedthe scarlet splash of a cardinal perched on a cannonon a bluff above the Hudson.I lay down on a picnic table,sun on my face, five turkey vulturescircling overhead, and closed my eyes.And when I opened them I felt as pleasedas if I had completed some needful taskinstead of having forgottenhow my friend in January and my cousin in March,both of them alert and wry and tranquil,had faced what each of them clearly saw approaching—more, had recognized and greeted it,instead of ignoring it by looking through it,the way some people, even iftheir office is two doors down the hall,look right through you, pretending not to see you.Or maybe they don't see youany more than one envisions deathon a sunny April afternoon.The Last Lecture HallTheaters that were never ours,classrooms empty and refill.Nor do the trees belong to us.We cross the stage and disappearor venture in among the treesand lose ourselves there.Feverish categories blur.Genre distinctions: what for?The empty theater becomesa lecture hall. A classroom morphsinto a forest murmuringwith voices. Words pelt down like rainor rise like mist and dissipate.The rustling trees swell to a roar.But they were never still.Theater, classroom, maple, fir:feverish categories blur,presences pressing through the veilof the phenomenal;a leopard padding down the aisle.Tiger-masked students fill the seatsof the amphitheater.The old professor, looking outover the upturned faces, said“You are all allegoricalfigures to me. I will not learnyour names.” Did the students laugh?Tragedy, satire, comedy:genres are deciduous.Modes blur, leaves spin and fall.The leaves of memory seemed to makeA mournful rustling in the dark(Longfellow, “The Fire of Driftwood”).Lights go on in the theater.Class is over. We stumble out.The GatesWhen I woke up I had walked through a gate.I looked around the room—trickle or torrent, stepping into time—and bent my head to drink at a black stream.I look around a roomthick with the dust of after and before.Am I meant to drink from this black stream?My lips are dry,thick with the crust of after and before,gate of ivory and gate of horn.My lips are dry, I'm thirsty.Heat, cold, fire, snow, sun.Gate of ivory and gate of horn:to cross a threshold ends one story(firelight; snow squeaking; winter sun)and begins another.To cross a threshold ends one story(ever after? or a transformation?)and begins anotherthere is no law compelling us to enter.Ever after or a transformation.Torrent, trickle: we set foot in time,but there's no law compelling us to enterstory once we've latched the gate of dream.FilamentsYour past is thickening. You can seeits filaments, as carefullyyou begin to part the strands(they're all connected) with both hands,and clear a path. Now warilyenter the web—not all the way,but toward some kind of clarity.We have been rightly taught that wecan't finish, but must do, the work.Partway through the leafy murk,crisscrossing dapple of the trees,so tough and so precarious,you find yourself in the dawn air,the circle's center everywhere.Along the PromenadeReading a book about transitioningin the twenty-first-century meaning of the wordblends with plans for my son's upcoming weddingand scraps of conversation overheardat the Japanese-themed street fair today.Somnambulists along the promenadefloat in the warm currents of Broadway,eat talk look linger in the sun and shade.Then to the park: October leaves still green(climate change or merely Indian summer?).Snatched memories, I catch them on the wing:Samos Septembers, pomegranate tree,lemon tree, okra, a chameleon,the little summer of Saint Dimitri,they called it. All this happened; but to me?Streams of conversation flowing by.The sound artist described his work like this(if work is the right word): “Accidentallyuploading seemingly private messages,”which describes, also, dreams and poetry,the drifting crowd, incessant carousel,city and weather, time and holiday,all lived, palped, tasted, tested, overheard.Somnambulists along the promenadehave set up booths, their dreams... Bookending my dawn dream: symmetricalsoaking sponges dripping... DNA?Destiny, temperament, personality:the cards we're dealt and that we have to play,except we now can change them gradually.Transition: he or she or rather they,constructed, deconstructed, rearranged,the tarot spread of genealogy,inheritance as aleatoric play.We walked west to Eleventh Avenue,drawn by rumors of Ad Reinhardt's blue,which buzzed and throbbed. Stand still: my head was spinning.Allusions to water or to sky,dense, deep, alarming, ending or beginning... I sat awhile and watched the crowd glide by,enchanted promenaders all drawn inon the exhibition's last dayby the silence's cerulean humming.And then they climbed the stairs, and so did we,to lighter textures on an upper floorwhere Ruth Asawa's baskets in midairweightlessly demonstrated gravity,twigs, trees, crowns, bubbles dancing in white space.Next week my class will read “On Being Ill.”“Blogs,” I'll tell them, is the word we nowuse, not “essay,” for the moving mind,that saunterer who takes note and leaves behindand doubles back and ponders and regretsamidst the wash of vision, the flowand tidal pull of what we see and know,what we've dreamed, what we have said and heard,the thrumming colors and the floating crowd,as if the bubbly brew of sunny dayand anxious dreams could somehow all be caughtup in one enormous, one all-encompassing word. (shrink)

Trade cards were a means of advertising products or services and thereby attracting customers to the owner's shop. They often included a variety of details about the proprietor and his business, and illustrated his wares. Cards for the scientific instrument industry depicted all classes of instrument and the products from which they were made. A careful study of the cards can reveal much supplementary information about the way the industry worked, so their use, and limitations, as a (...) source of historical evidence is discussed in detail. Over sixty English trade cards from London and the provinces, covering the period 1670 to 1900, are illustrated . By careful analysis, it is shown that aesthetic style and type-face design, combined with written and pictorial content, may be used to deduce dates and business practices. Many small pieces of information gradually build a complex picture of an important and fascinating industry. (shrink)

Despite recent efforts by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to move towards standardised procedures for documenting models, methods, systems or datasets, there is currently no methodology focused on use cases aligned with the risk-based approach of the European AI Act (AI Act). In this paper, we propose a new framework for the documentation of use cases that we call use case cards, based on the use case modelling included in the Unified Markup Language (UML) standard. Unlike other documentation methodologies, (...) we focus on the intended purpose and operational use of an AI system. It consists of two main parts: firstly, a UML-based template, tailored to allow implicitly assessing the risk level of the AI system and defining relevant requirements, and secondly, a supporting UML diagram designed to provide information about the system-user interactions and relationships. The proposed framework is the result of a co-design process involving a relevant team of EU policy experts and scientists. We have validated our proposal with 11 experts with different backgrounds and a reasonable knowledge of the AI Act as a prerequisite. We provide the 5 use case cards used in the co-design and validation process. Use case cards allows framing and contextualising use cases in an effective way, and we hope this methodology can be a useful tool for policy makers and providers for documenting use cases, assessing the risk level, adapting the different requirements and building a catalogue of existing usages of AI. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, new varieties of flowers were created in Istanbul’s many agricultural spaces. At the same time, new literary genres related to flower breeding appeared: technical “how-to” manuals, which derived from an earlier tradition of agricultural treatises; encyclopedias of the flower varieties created in Istanbul; and biographical dictionaries of Istanbul’s flower breeders. Such texts, which typically bear the designation Şükūfe-nāme (Books on Flowers), attempt to prescribe note-taking habits, agricultural timelines, and observational techniques. Varieties of flowers (...) with various shapes, sizes, and colors are attributed to the work of individual local breeders. This essay explores the role of seeds in this rich textual production in Istanbul. As things that are mobile yet can take root, seeds became objects of study during what was an era of heightened exchange and mobility in seventeenth-century Ottoman Istanbul. In contrast to the view holding that the history of flower seeds unfolded primarily in Ottoman exchanges with Western Europe, the case of Şükūfe-nāme works shows that seeds were technological objects with local histories. (shrink)

Automatic Generation Control in modern power systems is getting complex, due to intermittency in the output power of multiple sources along with considerable digressions in the loads and system parameters. To address this problem, this paper proposes an approach to calculate Power System Restoration Indices of a 2-area thermal-hydro restructured power system. This study also highlights the necessary ancillary service requirements for the system under a deregulated environment to cater to large-scale power failures and entire system outages. An abrupt change (...) in consumer load demands and disturbances in any control region of a multiarea system causes severe fluctuations in frequency and interarea power exchanges. However, simple Proportional and Integral controllers are most prevalent in the literature to effectively resolve AGC issues, while its integral gain is smaller due to the larger overshoot in transient performance. Therefore, an attempt has been made with a novel control strategy, known as the pseudoderivative feedforward with feedback controller, is developed to keep the interarea power exchanges and the frequency to the specified limits after load changes. A PDFF controller is designed and implemented using the flower pollination algorithm to obtain optimal dynamic performance for different types of potential power flows in a restructured power system under investigation. The proposed PDFF controller localizes the zero at an optimal place that reduces the rise time of the step-response to reduce the excessive overshoot and gives much better dynamic performances as compared to the PI control structure. The Integral Square Error is considered as a performance criterion to derive the optimized gain of the PDFF control structure using FPA. Different PSRI are computed based on the transient response of the 2-area deregulated multisource system and different restoration measures to be taken are also discussed. The simulation results clearly show that the proposed approach is very powerful in decreasing the frequency and tie-power digressions under different load perturbations. (shrink)

Peter Eisenman is known internationally for his innovative and provocative architecture and writings. One of the "New York Five," he has been a leading figure in the architectural community for many years, as teacher, as founder and former director of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and as builder. This long-awaited book is a rich and complex investigation of his first six houses, which he calls "Houses of Cards" and specifically about House IV and House VI. In these (...) houses, Eisenman has tried to strip architecture of its traditional meanings and associations, making the planes, walls, and elements of the houses as valueless as an arrangement of playing cards. This book contains the architect's own texts on House IV and House VI, which he wrote in 1974, and 1976, as they were being designed, as well as an overview in which he places these houses in the context of his work as a whole. In his essay Manfredo Tafuri offers a psychological perspective; in hers Rosalind Krauss provides cultural and historical contexts. The book is profusely illustrated with sketches, diagrams, and photographs. In some ways, the book itself becomes a new project--somewhat of a metaphor for Eisenman's new approach to architecture--layered with "absences and presences," a complex fiction. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss card games designed to supplement or replace exercise sets on derivability and entailment in propositional logic. I present rules for two propositional logic card games that introduce chance and competition into discussions of propositional logic. The latter sections provide brief practical and theoretical notes on this kind of game, including ways courses that use these games can be more effective than courses that do not.

Robert Card criticises our proposal for managing some conscientious objections in medicine. Unfortunately, he severely mischaracterises the nature of our proposal, its scope and its implications. He also overlooks the fact that our proposal is a compromise designed for a particular political context. We correct Card’s mischaracterisations, explain why we believe compromise is necessary and explain how we think proposed compromises should be evaluated.

Suppose we have a stack of cards that is divided over some players. For certain distributions of cards it is possible to communicate your hand of cards to another player by public announcements, without yet another player learning any of your cards. A solution to this problem consists of some sequence of announcements and is called an exchange. It is called a direct exchange if it consists of (the minimum of) two announcements only. The announcements in (...) an exchange have a special form: they are safe communications, an interesting new form of update. Certain unsafe communications turn out to be unsuccessful updates. A communication is a public announcement that is known to be true. Each communication may be about a set of alternative card deals only, and even about a set of alternatives to the communicating player's own hand only. We list the direct exchanges for a deal of seven cards where the two players holding three cards communicate their hands to each other. Our work may be applicable to the design of cryptographic protocols. (shrink)

God is omniscient; therefore, He knows that ‘the flower in my hand is red.’ If God knows that ‘the flower in my hand is red,’ then He knows it perceptually. God does not know anything perceptually. It is clear that the set of propositions – form an inconsistent triad. This is one of four problems with which Avicenna was engaged concerning God's knowledge of particulars, which I call the problem of perceptual knowledge. In order to solve PPK and (...) three other problems, Avicenna has developed a theory concerning God’s knowledge of particulars. Secondary literature around Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars has mostly directed its attention to give an account of Avicenna’s positive theory rather than the problems which that theory was designed to solve. But this paper will not do the same thing as this secondary literature. In contrast, in this paper, I will concentrate on the characterization of one of the problems, i.e., PPK, because of which Avicenna has presented his positive theory of God’s knowledge of particulars. In short, this paper aims to show why Avicenna deems explaining God’s knowledge of, say, the redness of a flower, via his accepted theory of perception as problematic. In this regard, I will extract three versions of PPK based on Avicenna's philosophy and through it will shed some light on Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars. (shrink)

The author analyses the design of her collaborative animation about inattention blindness, the phenomenon of not being able to see things that are actually there, and compares it to related scientific research.1 The term was coined by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock in 1992. Stealing Attention, co-created by the author and neuroscientist Michael E. Goldberg, Director of the Mahoney Center for Brain and Behavior at Columbia University, explored inattention blindness. Animated images of hands playing the con game Three-Card Monte (...) were superimposed over images of antiquities stolen from Iraq. The flashing cards, yellow circles and stated instructions distracted the viewer from seeing the images of stolen antiquities, which disappeared from depicted shelves one by one over the time span of approximately three minutes. The author considers five questions: What is perceived without attention What does attention select Under what circumstances can attention be shifted Is an observer trained in art less likely to be distracted Can attention be trained. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore whether the usage of credit cards has peer effects in rural areas of China. The results suggest that the usage of credit cards will be affected by the behavior of other farmers; namely, the usage of credit cards has peer effects in rural areas. We also verify that women, older, and low-academic farmers show stronger peer effects. The results emphasize that, compared with the mass farmers and vulnerable farmers, the usage of elite (...) farmers is more likely to affect the same behaviors of other farmers. Our study contributes to prior literature by giving empirical insights into the consequences of peer effects on the credit card usage of farmers, which conduces to a better understanding of the financial decision-making of farmers. The research may provide a practical implication for the optimal design of policy interventions. On the one hand, banks and other financial institutions can promote innovative financial products in rural areas with the help of peer effects; on the other hand, regulators can regulate farmers’ wrong financial behaviors by the social multiplier of peer effects to reduce systemic risks in rural finance. (shrink)

Indoor plants can positively impact physical and mental health in daily life. However, the benefits of viewing indoor plants may be enhanced if the plants emit a fragrant aroma. In this crossover-design study, we measured the physiological and psychological effects of fragrant and non-fragrant Primula plants on 50 female college students, and explored whether aroma stimulation had additive benefits for this group. Non-fragrant Primula malacoides Franch was used as a control stimulus, and Primula forbesii Franch, which has a floral (...) fragrance, was used as an experimental stimulus. We measured blood pressure, pulse rate, and electroencephalogram to evaluate physiological responses, and used a mood state profile and the semantic differential method to evaluate psychological responses. We found that mean blood pressure and pulse rate decreased significantly after the experiment in both conditions. EEGs showed that the mean values of high alpha waves, high beta waves, and relaxation scores were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. The average scores on each subscale of the psychological questionnaire improved after the experiment in both conditions, and the vitality subscale and total emotional state scores were significantly better in the experimental vs. control condition. The results of the SD method showed that the sense of relaxation and comfort were significantly higher in the experimental vs. control condition. Compared with the non-fragrant Primula, the fragrant Primula induced relatively better physiological and psychological effects. (shrink)

The standing screens on the title is the oldest work extant of KANO Motonobu's work as folding screens of thick colored flowers and birds with golden background. This thesis designates that the scenery and the motif of the work are in correspondence with both descriptions of the scenery of Pure Land in several Buddhist scriptures and the design of actual gardens. Firstly, a peacock on the right hand screen is focused to indicate the bird connotes the elements of auspicious (...) birds in Buddhism, such as Mahamayuri and Kalavinka.Secondly, the elements of the scenery in the work, such as the four seasons at the same time ∼ the depiction of perpetuity ∼ and the existence of a pond, are identified with the description of Pure Land in Kwan-mu-liang-shou-ching and Ta-wuliang-shou-ching. These elements of the garden in the work are placed similarly to the Pure Land style gardens, which are illustrated in "Center and Surrounds of Kyoto" 's. In consideration of the above factors, the conclusion that, in the work, KANO Motonobu succeeded to portray the ideal garden by combining the scenery of Pure Land and that of actual gardens, is drawn. (shrink)

National electronic identity (e-ID) card schemes and electronic identity management systems (e-IDMS) in Europe are characterised by considerable diversity. This contribution analyses the creation of a national e-IDMS in Austria with the aim of improving our understanding of the reasons behind the genesis of particular designs of national e-IDMS. It seeks to explain how the system’s specific design evolved and which factors shaped its appearance. Being part of a comparative four country study, a common theoretical framework is employed to (...) allow for a comparison of national e-IDMS in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Spain. It combines the approach of actor-centred institutionalism and the concept of path dependence in order to analyse the innovation process and to explain resulting key characteristics of the e-IDMS in Austria: a technology-neutral system with multiple tokens; an ID model based on the Central Register of Residents; a privacy concept using sector-specific personal identifiers. It is shown that innovation process and outcome are not only shaped by specific actor constellations dominated by strategic e-government bodies, but also by path dependence at three levels: technological, institutional and organisational. (shrink)

In this paper we recount several research projects conducted at ImaginationLancaster a Design-led research laboratory, all of which consider Object-Oriented Ontology. The role OOO plays in these projects is varied: as a generative mechanism contributing to ideation; as a framework for analysis; and as a constituent in developing new design theory. Each project’s focus is quite unique—an app, a board game, a set of Tarot cards, a kettle and a living room—however they are all concerned with developing (...) new understandings relating to the ubiquitous, networked, ‘smart’ technologies which are often referred to as the Internet of Things. Through our reflexive account of these research projects the aim of this paper is to provide insights into, and promote new discussion about, the relevance and scope for OOO in socio-technical Design Research, and beyond. (shrink)

Most engineers Fwork within social structures governing and governed by a set of values that primarily emphasise economic concerns. The majority of innovations derive from these loci. Given the effects of these innovations on various communities, it is imperative that the values they embody are aligned with those societies. Like other transformative technologies, artificial intelligence systems can be designed by a single organisation but be diffused globally, demonstrating impacts over time. This paper argues that in order to design for (...) this broad stakeholder group, engineers must adopt a systems thinking approach that allows them to understand the sociotechnicity of artificial intelligence systems across sociocultural domains. It claims that value sensitive design, and envisioning cards in particular, provides a solid first step towards helping designers harmonise human values, understood across spatiotemporal boundaries, with economic values, rather than the former coming at the opportunity cost of the latter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 129 Miriam Kienle Dear Data: Feminist Information Design’s Resistance to Self-Quantification Every Sunday for one year, information designers Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec sent each other a hand-drawn postcard that featured a data visualization of their week as it pertained to a single aspect of their daily lives: doors opened, clocks checks, sounds heard, smells perceived, and (...) so on (figs. 1–4). With this series of postcards exchanged between Brooklyn and London, Lupi and Posavec gained intimate knowledge of one another through their small/slow data, and at the same time, they produced a critical examination of the capture, interpretation, and visualization of their daily data from a uniquely feminist perspective. Although the field of information design prizes clear, efficient, and seamless presentations of quantified activity, Lupi and Posavec’s Dear Data (2015) is comprised of visualizations that underscore complexity over clarity, present questions rather simply display information, and expose the instability of data itself.1 Against the quantification of embodied experience into seemingly objective and all-encompassing datasets, Dear Data instead looks at data from a feminist perspective, as tied to concrete bodies, localities, and temporalities and visualized in a manner 1. The approach to infographics that prioritizes efficiency, accuracy, and elegance, and thus suppresses the constructed and interpretative nature of both data and its visualization, is perhaps most attributed to Edward Tufte. For Tufte’s aims and methods, see Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001). 130 Miriam Kienle that is incomplete, contingent, and constructed.2 This paper will analyze Lupi and Posavec’s designs as providing a model for a feminist approach to data visualization—a model imperative in an age in which the quantitative information (much like a binary understanding of gender) is too often treated as a self-evident fact rather than what feminist philosopher Donna Haraway famously called “situated knowledges.”3 Recently acquired by MoMA’s architecture and design collection, the Dear Data project not only stands out in the collection as the product of two female designers working in the male-dominated fields of technology and design, but also as a project that stresses feminist knowledge production by underscoring how data voids shape datasets and debunking the myth that the world is data that can be captured and visualized with neutral, distanced, and all-encompassing technologies of vision. As Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein describe in Data Feminism, data visualization from a feminist perspective understands that “bar charts might seem neutral and objective, but are in fact the result of very human and necessarily imperfect design processes.”4 Such a perspective is evident across Dear Data. Take, for example, “Week 42: A week of laughter” (fig. 5). On the key in Posavec’s visualization, she notes: “I tried to capture my laughs which was really hard + got in the way of the enjoying life, hence the data voids. / For a card about laughter I am sad about how this card turned out.”5 This willingness to show the gaps in her data, the complexities of her process, and the imperfections of her visualizations contrasts with the seamless and straightforward displays of information 2. For a feminist approach to data visualization, see Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019), ebook; Catherine D’Ignazio, “What Would Feminist Data Visualization Look Like?” Center for Civic Media. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (blog), December 20, 2015, https://civic.mit.edu/feminist-data-visualization; and Johanna Drucker, Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 3. Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–99. 4. D’Ignazio and Klein, introduction to their Data Feminism. 5. Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, Dear Data (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), 231. Miriam Kienle 131 or what infographic guru Edward Tufte describes as “Designs so good that they are invisible.”6 Counter to the invisible and seemingly objective visualizations of our personal data to which we have become accustomed (on calorie counters, credit card statements, etc... (shrink)

As much a doubter as a believer, Emily Dickinson often expressed views about God in general—and God with respect to suffering in particular. In many of her poems, she contemplates the question posed by countless theologians and poets before her: how can one reconcile a benevolent deity with evil in the world? Examining Dickinson’s perspectives on the role played by a supposedly omnipotent and all-loving God in a world marked by violence and pain, Patrick Keane initially focuses on her poem (...) “Apparently with no surprise,” in which frost, a “blonde Assassin,” beheads a “happy Flower,” a spectacle presided over by “an Approving God.” This tiny lyric,Keane shows, epitomizes the poet’s embattled relationship with the deity of her Calvinist tradition. Although the problem of sufferingis usually couched in terms of natural disasters or human injustice, Dickinson found new ways of considering it. By choosing a flower as her innocent “victim,” she bypassed standard “answers” to the dilemma in order to focus on the problem in its purest symbolic form. Keane goes on toprovide close readings of many of Dickinson’s poems and letters engaging God, showing how she addressed the challenges posed—by her own experience and by an innate skepticism reinforced by a nascent Darwinism—to the argument from design and the concept of a benevolent deity. More than a dissection of a single poem, Keane’s book is a sweeping personal reflection on literature and religion, faith and skepticism, theology and science. He traces the evolving history of the Problem of Suffering from the Hebrew Scriptures, through the writings of Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas, to the most recent theological and philosophical studies of the problem. Keane is interested in _how_ readers today respond to Emily Dickinson’s often combative poems about God; at the same time, she is located as a poet whose creative life coincided with the momentous changes and challenges to religious faith associated with Darwin andNietzsche.Keane also considers Dickinson’s poems and letters in the context of the great Romantic tradition, as it runs fromMilton throughWordsworth, demonstrating how thework of these poets helps illuminate Dickinson’s poetry and thought. Because Dickinson the poet was also Emily the gardener, her love of flowers was an appropriate vehicle for her observations on mortality and her expressions of doubt. _Emily Dickinson’s Approving God _is a graceful study that reveals not only the audacity of Dickinson’s thought but also its relevance to modern readers. In light of ongoing confrontations between Darwinism and design, science and literal conceptions of a divine Creator, it is an equally provocative read for students of literature and students of life. (shrink)

This paper introduces the objectives and basic approach of a collaborative comparative research project on the introduction of national electronic Identity Management Systems (eIDMS) in Member States of the European Union. Altogether eight country case studies have been produced in two waves by researchers in the respective countries, which will be presented in the following articles in this special issue. The studies adopt a common conceptual framework and use the same terminology, which will be presented in this introduction, just as (...) the reasoning for the selection of the particular countries under investigation. The conceptual framework combines elements of actor centred institutionalism with path analysis, looking for path continuation, change or creation in the transition from the previous IDMS to an electronic one and explaining this as choices of actors in certain contexts. Information on the reasons for these choices in the first four cases has been collected from in depth interviews with key actors and in the four other cases from official documents. As the subject of this research is the transition of national identity management systems only countries have been included in which a national ID and a civil registry already exist before the introduction of the electronic elements, thus excluding the UK. (shrink)

In the summer of 2017, wildflower seeds were spread on a large, empty open space close to a motorway flyover just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. This was an effort to use non-mechanical methods to prepare the soil for an ‘urban forest’ to be established on the site, since the flowers’ roots would penetrate the ground and enable the planned new trees to settle. As a result, the site was transformed into a gorgeous meadow, and all summer long Copenhageners were invited to (...) come and pick the flowers. In this article, I critically examine different aspects of this project – including the role of design, the perception of nature–culture relationships, climate change, and flower-picking as an event – in relation to my personal experience of visiting this meadow both on-site and on social media. The different temporalities that clash at the site give rise to conflicting interpretations, and I suggest that the meadow can be seen as a living plant archive of the Anthropocene, both physically and digitally. In doing so, I introduce and critique key conceptual pairs, including archive/death and bloom/decay, suggested by Lee Edelman’s queer cross-reading of Jacques Derrida’s ‘Archive Fever’ and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I thereby contrast flower motifs pertaining to the cycles of blooming, decay, and nature’s (failed) eternal return in the meadow with the expansive futurity of the digitally mediated archive. (shrink)

This is the first volume to apply insights from the material turn in philosophy to the study of play and games. At a time of renewed interest in analogue gaming, as scholars are looking beyond the digital and virtual for the first time since the inception of game studies in the 1990s, Material Game Studies not only supports the importance of the turn to the analogue, but proposes a materiality of play more broadly. Recognizing the entanglement of physical materiality with (...) cultural meaning, the authors in this volume apply a range of theoretical approaches, from material eco-criticism to animal studies, to examine games and play as existing within worlds of matter. Different chapters focus on the material properties of board, card and role-playing games, how they are designed and made, how they are touched and played with, and how they connect with other human and nonhuman things. Bringing together international scholars, Material Game Studies defines a new field of material game studies and demonstrates how it is a valuable addition to wider debates about the material turn and the place of embodied humans in a material world. (shrink)

Background: Good nurses show concern for patients by caring for them effectively and attentively to foster their well-being. However, nurses cannot be taught didactically to be “good” or any trait that characterizes a good nurse. Nurses’ self-awareness of their role traits warrants further study. Objectives: This study aimed (a) to develop a strategy to elicit nurses’ self-exploration of the importance of good nurse traits and (b) to explore any discrepancies between such role traits perceived by nurses as ideally and actually (...) important. Research design: For this mixed-method study, we used good nurse trait card play to trigger nurses’ reflections based on clinical practice. Nurse participants appraised the ideal and actual importance of each trait using a Q-sort grid. The gap between the perceived ideal and actual importance of each trait was examined quantitatively, while trait-related clinical experiences were analyzed qualitatively. Participants and research context: Participants were 35 in-service nurses (mean age = 31.6 years (range = 23–49 years); 10.1 years of nursing experience (range = 1.5–20 years)) recruited from a teaching hospital in Taiwan. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the study site. Findings: Good nurse trait card play with a Q-sort grid served as an icebreaker to help nurse participants talk about their experiences as embodied in good quality nursing care. Nurses’ perceived role–trait discrepancies were divided into three categories: over-performed, least discrepant, and under-performed. The top over-performed trait was “obedience.” Discussion: Patients’ most valued traits (“patient,” “responsible,” “cautious,” and “considerate”) were perceived by participants as ideally important but were under-performed, perhaps due to experienced nurses’ loss of idealism. Conclusion: Good nurse trait card play with Q-sort grid elicited nurses’ self-dialogue and revealed evidence of the incongruity between nurses’ perceived ideal and actual importance of traits. The top over-performed trait, “obedience,” deserves more study. (shrink)

We present the design of a secure and privacy preserving e-petition system that we have implemented as a proof-of-concept demonstrator. We use the Belgian e-ID card as source of authentication, and then proceed to issue an anonymous credential that is used to sign petitions. Our system ensures that duplicate signatures are detectable, while preserving the anonymity of petition signers. We analyze the privacy and security requirements of our application, present an overview of its architecture, and discuss the applicability of (...) data protection legislation to our system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:776 Feminist Studies 43, no. 3. © 2018 by Shirley Geok-lin Lim Shirley Geok-lin Lim Cassandra Days: Poems Vox populi vox Dei “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” June 20, 2016 The voice bellowing from the stage Will not be upstaged. The rage Swelling from its undercurrents Is its own fixed swirling warrant When actor and audience are one. One, the agent and their actions; (...) One, litigant and ombudsman. When the voice of God is human One is the voice of the people. Scattered—the lame and the crippled, When the voice of God is human And bellows on stage from this man. Shirley Geok-lin Lim 777 Cassandra November 8, 2016 This Cassandra opens a bottle of red, Begins drinking early, alone, in bed. Fascism with a friendly face does not Console, his leers do not cheer, that knowing nod To end times was foretold in the entrails Blasted by unreturned fire. They who were hailed Heroes in their homeland enter the temple, Swagger, swearing, seared in the Sun King’s call To torch and burn. This Cassandra has no gift For light. She’s depressed. No Thanksgiving will lift Her day. No deeds already in the doing Can be undone. The blood in the sheetings That she sees, the world that’s winding down, And none to scare, none can tell, none, none. 778 Shirley Geok-lin Lim What rough beast? November 11, 2016 It’s me, Ruth, slouching to who knows where. It’s me—the palace grounds are secured, the woods fenced, the house’s red-lined seats reserved, fruits forbidden, streets barred to one walking. Have you a permit? Are you licensed? Your papers, documents, ID cards? Speak, Ruth, when spoken to, only not now, not here. Shirley Geok-lin Lim 779 The Laws January 21, 2017 Law of the stone: I smash, I own. Law of the flower: Live for the hour. Law of the bee: No flight is free. Law of the man: I rule, I ban. Law of the sun: Above me, none.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proust and the Phenomenology of MemoryThomas M. Lennon"I still believe that anything that I do outside of literature and philosophy will be so much time wasted." Thus did the twenty-two year old Marcel Proust (1871–1922) write to his father, reluctantly agreeing to consider a career in the foreign service as an alternative to the legal profession otherwise being urged upon him. ("I should vastly prefer going to work for (...) a stockbroker," was his comment.)1 Happily for us all, Proust was obliged to do neither, and in fact was able to do both philosophy and literature. As André Maurois puts it, "[Proust's] great novel is philosophy incarnate."2 Certainly, In Search of Lost Time is saturated with philosophy, the appreciation of which cannot help but enhance our understanding of this great work. The thesis here will be that a loosely phenomenological account of the work's central concept of memory gives us the structure of the work as a whole.The biographical facts suggest such an approach. Proust received a license from the Sorbonne in 1895, and, more importantly, had previously been a student of the philosopher Alphonse Darlu at the Lycée Condorcet. Although he published very little, Darlu was a charismatic, inspirational figure for his students—not least of all for Proust himself, who described him as "the great philosopher whose inspired words, more certain to last than any writing would, gave birth in me as in so many others to thought itself."3 A touching artifact of Proust's time with Darlu is his report card, preserved in the Proust Museum at Illiers-Combray. Not incidentally, it shows a concentration on the classical authors who will be deployed here. We also have a wonderful little text that argues a kind of phenomenalism influenced perhaps by Hume, and certainly by Kant.4 The one author important to our account whose name does not figure as such in any of this material is Malebranche; but we know [End Page 52] that Proust was familiar with the great Oratorian since he quotes him.5 In fact, the only author appearing below who could not have been on Proust's shelf is Kundera, the most philosophical and Proustian of all recent novelists.We begin with a text; it is the most famous of all in French literature, the episode of the madeleine from the Search. The text has become so well known—through hearsay more than from having been read, no doubt—that it has invited "kitchification."6 Even so, it is an exquisite piece of writing, which, in any case, is essential to the thesis here.Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray... had any existence for me, when one day in winter as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing that I did not ordinarily take.... She sent out for one of those plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines'.... I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body.... And suddenly the memory [le souvenir] returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of 'madeleine' which on Sunday mornings at Combray... my Aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or lime-flower tea.... Immediately the old grey house upon the street rose up like the scenery of a theatre... in a moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.7There are other such episodes of the past springing into being, but not many, and they occur but infrequently, until the very end of this vast work, when they come upon the narrator rapidly and almost... (shrink)

Modern methods of information storage up completely new possibilities for the systematics of biology, understood in the widest sense. The construction of identification codes for use with punchcards must be considered against the wider background of these new possibilities. A critical pre-condition for the use of these modern methods is that questions of terminology and classification should be fundamentally restudied. The book for flowering plants “Flora von Deutschland” has been used as a basis for developing several punch-card codes. These codes (...) have made it possible to establish sets of IBM punchcards, totalling about 3000 in all, for German flowering plants. Современные методы хранения информации раскрывают для биологической систематики совершенно новые возможности. Составление ключов определения использующих пуншкарты следует рассматривать в связи с этими новыми возможностями. Для применения новых способов бесусловно требуется основное изучение вопросов терминологии и классификации. Посредством определителя цветных растений „Flora von Deutschland” .составились разные ключи определения для пуншкарт. С помощью этих ключов изготовились системы ИБМ пуншкарт для цветных растений Германии. Die modernen Methoden der Wissensspeicherung erschließen für die gesamte biologische Systematik völlig neue Möglichkeiten. Der Aufbau von Bestimmungsschlüsseln für Lochkarten muß in dem durch diese neuen Möglichkeiten gegebenen größeren Zusammenhang gesehen werden. Eine entscheidende Voraussetzung für die Anwendung der modernen Verfahren ist die erneute und gründliche Beschäftigung mit den Fragen der Terminologie und der Ordnungslehre. Ausgehend von dem Bestimmungsbuch für Blütenpflanzen „Flora von Deutschland“ wurden verschiedene Lochkartenschlüssel entwickelt. Mit Hilfe der Schlüssel konntenIBM-Karteien von insgesamt rund 3.000 Lochkarten über deutsche Blütenpflanzen aufgestellt werden. (shrink)

Biomedical research policy in recent years has often tried to make such research more ‘translational’, aiming to facilitate the transfer of insights from research and development to health care for the benefit of future users. Involving patients in deliberations about and design of biomedical research may increase the quality of R&D and of resulting innovations and thus contribute to translation. However, patient involvement in biomedical research is not an easy feat. This paper discusses the development of a method for (...) involving patients in biomedical research aiming to address its main challenges.After reviewing the potential challenges of patient involvement, we formulate three requirements for any method to meaningfully involve patients in biomedical research. It should enable patients to put forward their experiential knowledge, to develop a rich view of what an envisioned innovation might look like and do, and to connect their experiential knowledge with the envisioned innovation. We then describe how we developed the card-based discussion method ‘Voice of patients’, and discuss to what extent the method, when used in four focus groups, satisfied these requirements. We conclude that the method is quite successful in mobilising patients’ experiential knowledge, in stimulating their imaginaries of the innovation under discussion and to some extent also in connecting these two. More work is needed to translate patients’ considerations into recommendations relevant to researchers’ activities. It also seems wise to broaden the audience for patients’ considerations to other actors working on a specific innovation. (shrink)

This volume of _The Broadview Introduction to Philosophy_ offers an intriguing selection of readings on ethics, social-political philosophy, and issues of life, death, and happiness. Canonical texts from historical figures such as Plato, Hobbes, and Wollstonecraft are included alongside contemporary selections from such thinkers as Claudia Card, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Unlike other introductory anthologies, the Broadview offers considerable apparatus to assist the student reader in understanding the texts without simply summarizing them. Each selection includes an introduction discussing (...) the context and structure of the primary reading, as well as thorough annotations designed to clarify unfamiliar terms, references, and argument forms. (shrink)

An important function of the self is to identify external objects that are potentially personally relevant. We suggest that such objects may be identified through mere ownership. Extant research suggests that encoding information in a self-relevant context enhances memory , thus an experiment was designed to test the impact of ownership on memory performance. Participants either moved or observed the movement of picture cards into two baskets; one of which belonged to self and one which belonged to another participant. (...) A subsequent recognition test revealed that there was a significant memory advantage for objects that were owned by self. Acting on items had no impact on memory. Results are discussed with reference to the importance of self-object associations in cognition. (shrink)

nature of modern data collection and storage techniques, and the increases in the speed and storage capacities of computers. Statistics books from 30 years ago often presented examples with fewer than 10 variables, in domains where some background knowledge was plausible. In contrast, in new domains, such as climate research where satellite data now provide daily quantities of data unthinkable a few decades ago, fMRI brain imaging, and microarray measurements of gene expression, the number of variables can range into the (...) tens of thousands, and there is often limited background knowledge to reduce the space of alternative causal hypotheses. In such domains, non-automated causal discovery techniques appear to be hopeless, while the availability of faster computers with larger memories and disc space allow for the practical implementation of computationally intensive automated search algorithms over large search spaces. Contemporary science is not your grandfather’s science, or Karl Popper’s. Causal inference without experimental controls has long seemed as if it must somehow be capable of being cast as a kind of statistical inference involving estimators with some kind of convergence and accuracy properties under some kind of assumptions. Until recently, the statistical literature said not. While parameter estimation and experimental design for the effective use of data developed throughout the 20th century, as recently as 20 years ago the methodology of causal inference without experimental controls remained relatively primitive. Besides a cessation of hostilities from the majority of the statistical and philosophical communities (which has still only partially happened), several things were needed for theories of causal estimation to appear and to flower: well defined mathematical objects to represent causal relations; well defined connections between aspects of these objects and sample data; and a way to compute those connections. A sequence of studies beginning with Dempster’s work on the factorization of probability distributions [Dempster 1972] and culminating with Kiiveri and Speed’s [Kiiveri & Speed 1982] study of linear structural equation models, provided the first, in the form of directed acyclic graphs, and the second, in the form of the “local” Markov condition.. (shrink)

Building a meaningful model of biological regulatory network is usually done by specifying the components and their interactions, by guessing the values of parameters, by comparing the predicted behaviors to the observed ones, and by modifying in a trial-error process both architecture and parameters in order to reach an optimal fitness. We propose here a different approach to construct and analyze biological models avoiding the trial-error part, where structure and dynamics are represented as formal constraints. We apply the method to (...) Hopfield-like networks, a formalism often used in both neural and regulatory networks modeling. The aim is to characterize automatically the set of all models consistent with all the available knowledge. The available knowledge is formalized into formal constraints. The latter are compiled into Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form and then submitted to a Boolean satisfiability solver. This approach allows to formulate a wide range of queries, expressed in a high level language, and possibly integrating formalized intuitions. In order to explore its potential, we use it to find cycles for 3-nodes networks and to determine the flower morphogenesis regulatory network of Arabidopsis thaliana. Applications of this technique are numerous and concern the building of models from data as well as the design of biological networks possessing specified behaviors. (shrink)

Improving working conditions at the bottom of global value chains has become a central issue in our global economy. In this battle, trade unionism has been presented as a way for workers to make their voices heard. Therefore, it is strongly promoted by most social standards. However, establishing a well-functioning trade union is not as obvious as it may seem. Using a comparative case study approach, we examine impediments to farm-level unionism in the cut flower industry in Ethiopia. For (...) this purpose, we propose an integrated framework combining two lenses, namely a vertical one and a horizontal one. We identify 10 impediments that point to three major dimensions contributing to unionisation. These three dimensions include awareness of and interest from workers, legitimacy of trade unions, and capacity of trade unions to act. Furthermore, our results suggest that private social standards may, in certain cases, be counterproductive for the efficient functioning of trade unions. Although we argue that there is no ‘quick fix’ solution to weak workplace unionism at the bottom of global value chains, we stress the importance of considering the dynamics of, and interactions between, the impediments when designing potential support measures that mitigate negative impacts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Just ImagineAlisse Waterston (bio)The united states is a flower of harm.—Tongo Eisen-Martin, “Taking a Common Name (after Claudia Rankine’s Just Us)”I never have to go far for evidence of the truth of this line from Tongo Eisen-Martin’s response to Claudia Rankine’s Just Us.On a Friday, Kyoo Lee, coeditor of philoSOPHIA, invited me to offer my own response to Eisen-Martin’s and Fanny Howe’s essays in what she said would (...) be “like a game of exquisite corpse,” a productive way, I think, to build up rather than tear down, the latter of which is too often the case in academia. I had to think about it, to think about Just Us, Claudia Rankine’s powerful, generous, sharp, and profound book. In it, she makes an urgent request for “an American conversation” on whiteness. Rankine teaches us: “Universalized whiteness, that racial imaginary, lives in every moment” (2020, 329).I pace around the house, make some tea, and pick up the New York Times, scanning the headlines. There it is, front-page news this very day: “Sights Set on School Districts as G.O.P. Targets Race Theory” (Saul 2021, A1). Scarlett Johnson, profiled in the article, is a dirty-blond “just a mom” from Mequon-Thiensville, a school district in Wisconsin. Johnson has made it her mission to refuse the conversation; she is buttressed by a set of powerful and wealthy behind-the-scenes interest groups. Rankine writes, “I have only lived as me, a person who regularly has to negotiate dismissal, erasure, disrespect, and abuse” (2020, 23).The news article goes on: “Republicans say critical race theory has invaded classrooms.” Then, Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson implores, “take back our school boards, our county boards, our city councils” (Saul 2021, A12; emphases [End Page 141] mine). Rankine observes, “Among white people, black people... are not allowed to implicate the present company in [their] precariousness. They are not allowed to point out its causes” (2020, 155). She explains “the narrative of white privilege that secures white spaces,” then quotes legal scholar Cheryl Harris on “the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that accompany the status of being white... a valuable asset that whites sought [and seek] to protect” (Rankine 2020, 25). Only connect.§§§The spiraling back, the turn of the screw to take it out, to look at what happened, to break apart the cover, to disclose in reverse, recalibrate and recapitulate, to find points of composure and recognition—to view the news as what happened already but left the stain of reportage and evidence of fraud and failure.... The time we live in and the way we make use of our “screws” to construct a new stage to play on.—Fanny Howe, “After Reading Just Us”Here, Fanny Howe offers a beautiful metaphor for Rankine’s gift to the world, if it will take it. Many people, not enough, have joined in turning the screw. Those who have are engaging the process of thinking, without which the catastrophe of universalized whiteness and its human toll will endure. Howe writes of a new stage to play on, which I interpret as an exciting challenge to re-create. Claudia Rankine writes: “what if ” (2020, 3).What if we imagine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines imagine as the process of forming an image of something in the mind, something akin to dreaming, visualizing, thinking, supposing. To imagine is to form a mental image of something, perhaps a goal, an end to which one yearns to arrive, an achievement not yet actualized. On the last pages of Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano dares readers to exercise the right to dream. “Suppose we rave a bit?” he asks, and he offers a long list of possibilities for an alternative world (Galeano 2000, 333–36; see figure 1).In a classroom exercise designed by my former student James Williams, I ask my undergraduates at a public university in New York City to rave a bit, writing out on a slip of paper one thing they would change to make for an alternative world. The world they... (shrink)

Feminist philosophy emerged in earnest in the 1970s. With that emergence and the latest surge of the Women's Movement now a quarter of a century old and with the turn of the century approaching quickly, the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs and the Pacific Society for Women in Philosophy invited a group of feminist philosophers to reflect on feminism and philosophy as we approach the millennium. A roundtable was held at the 1995 meeting of the Pacific Division of the (...) American Philosophical Association, and much of the content of that session is included in this Symposium. The discussants include scholars with research interests across the traditional areas of philosophy (e.g., metaphysics and epistemology, ethics, social and political philosophy, history of philosophy, and philosophy of science), as well as not so traditional areas (e.g., lesbian philosophy). Each participant was asked to take ten minutes to focus on whatever she thought might be useful to discuss in a forum designed for taking stock of feminism and philosophy in the mid‐1990s. The contributors are Louise Antony, Joan Callahan (introduction), Claudia Card, Ruth Ginzberg, Martha Nussbaum, Naomi Scheman, Laurie Schrage, Nancy Tuana, Margaret Walker, and Charlotte Witt. (shrink)

This paper presents a framework for the design of human-centric identity management systems. Whilst many identity systems over the past few years have been labelled as _human-centred,_ we argue that the term has been appropriated by technologists to claim moral superiority of their products, and by system owners who confuse administrative convenience with benefits for users. The framework for human-centred identity presented here identifies a set of design properties that can impact the lived experience of the individuals whose (...) identity is being managed. These properties were identified through an analysis of public response to 15 historic national identity systems. They capture the practical design aspects of an identity system, from structural aspects that affect the flow of information - _Control Points, Subject Engagement, Identity Exposure, Population Coverage_—to the metrical aspects that considers how information is used and perceived—_Expert Interpretation, Population Comprehension, Information Accuracy, Information Stability, Subject Coupling, Information Polymorphism_. Any identity system can be described in terms of these fundamental properties, which affect individuals’ lived experience, and therefore help to determine the acceptance or rejection of such systems. We first apply each individual property within the context of two national identity systems—the UK DNA Database and the Austrian Citizen Card, and then also demonstrate the applicability of the framework within the contexts of two non-government identity platforms—Facebook and Phorm. Practitioners and researchers would make use of this framework by analysing an identity system in terms of the various properties, and the interactions between these properties within the context of use, thus allowing for the development of the potential impacts that the system has on the lived experience. (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 27-32. “My”—what does this word designate? Not what belongs to me, but what I belong to,what contains my whole being, which is mine insofar as I belong to it. Søren Kierkegaard. The Seducer’s Diary . I can’t sleep till I devour you / And I’ll love you, if you let me… Marilyn Manson “Devour” The role of poetry in the relationalities between people has a long history—from epic poetry recounting tales of yore; to emotive lyric poetry; to (...) rude, irreverent limericks; to Hallmark cards which have ditties that allow one to cringe, and somehow fall in love at the same moment. Without going into a notion of aesthetics, or attempting to choose which form of poetry is superior, we might want to consider why the form of poetry itself has long been a part of relationality. And whilst doing so, we might always keep in mind that poetry—especially poetry that moves, transports us—is the form that Plato has been warning us about, particularly if we want to become good citizens.As Avital Ronell teaches us in Stupidity : the poet, irremediably split between exaltation and vulgarity, between the autonomy that produces the concept within intuition and the foolish earthly being, functions as a contaminant for philosophy—a being who at least since Plato, has been trying to read and master an eviction notice served by philosophy. The poet as genius continues to threaten and fascinate, menacing the philosopher with the beyond of knowledge. Philosophy cringes (287). And considering that the philosopher is the lover of wisdom, we might begin to ask ourselves why one lover is warning against another—if the philosopher is in love with wisdom, then is the poet perhaps his rival, his challenger, for that very love? For, one must also remember that Plato—through Socrates—mentions constantly that Homer is his favourite. Moreover, by adopting both his own voice, whilst mixing it with Socrates’, Plato is adopting the form of poetry that he warns most about—the warning almost serves more as a homage to poetry than anything else. Here, we might open the register that one of the main reasons that he ejects a particular kind of poet is on the grounds of effecting effeminacy on the populace—good poetry moves you, affects you, transports you, shifts you beyond reason, puts you “out of your mind.” However, Plato also teaches us that rhetoric in its highest form requires divine inspiration by way of the daemon, or the muse. This moment of divine intervention is one that seizes—perhaps even ceases—you; putting you “beyond yourself.” In other words, a good rhetorician must always already be open to the possibility of otherness—the same otherness that possibly resides in the feminine. One could also trace this back to the poet that he both loved, and feared, most—Homer. Perhaps the effect of effeminacy that Homer's poetry opened is precisely the source of its power: through listening to Homer, one's body, one’s habitus is opened to the possibility of the feminine. And here, one must remember that the source of all learning—and all teaching—also lies in mimesis, in repetition, in habit. Once the habitus is opened to the possibility of invasion, of intervention, of otherness, there is quite possibly no possibility of distinguishing whether the mimesis is that of reproduction, or if there is always already a productive aspect to it. And by extension, if learning cannot be controlled, the very notion of teaching itself is shifted from a master-student relationality to one where the master is potentially changed as well—the relationality between the master and the student is not only inter-changing, but one cannot even know who is teaching, or learning, at any point. All that can be said is that they are in a relationality; which means that one is ultimately unable to locate the locus of knowledge, of wisdom—the site of which Plato is attempting to convince us is the sole domain of the philosopher. And it is this that philosophy is cringing from. To compound matters, philosophy is striving for wisdom; which can only come from the Gods. In other words, this is a gift that has to be bestowed on them—and more than that, wisdom is always already exterior to one’s control and knowledge. At best, it is the role of one to recognise the gift, to answer the call as it were. Here, if we listen carefully, we can hear the echo of Alexander Graham Bell, and the telephone. And as we are attempting to respond to the call of wisdom—the call that both poetry and philosophy are listening out for—it might be helpful to recall the agreement between Alexander Graham Bell and his brother Melville. In the biography, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude , Robert V. Bruce notes that Aleck and Melly made a “solemn compact that whichever of us should die first would endeavour to communication with the other if it were possible to do so” (63). Since Melville was the one who passed on first, this pact put the onus on Aleck to receive the call of his brother. If you take into consideration the fact that until Melville’s death, both brothers had been working on an early prototype of the telephone, the instrument of distant sound can be read as an attempt by Aleck to maintain the possibility of keeping in touch with Melly, of hearing the voice from beyond. However, this was a connection that was not premised on any knowing, reason, or rationality; it was rather, one that was based on hope, and born out of love. And here, if we eves-drop on a cross-line with The Telephone Book , we can pick up the voice of Avital Ronell once again and hear, “the connection to the other is a reading—not an interpretation, assimilation, or even a hermeneutic understanding, but a reading” (380). In other words, the telephone can be read as the openness to the possibility of responding to the other; one that might always remain unknown. Even in this day of caller-identification, we can never know for sure who the other person on the line is until we pick up: hence, the only decision we can make—the effects of which we remain blind to until it affects us—is to either pick up or not, to either respond or not. And it is not as if the decision to pick up comes without risks: each time we answer a call, we run the risk of it ruining our day. Even when we don’t know who the caller is, perhaps especially when we don’t know who the person on the other end of the line is—and here one only has to think of prank calls—we are leaving ourselves completely open to being affected by another. Thus, philosophy finds itself in the position of Vladimir and Estragon. Since they have no idea who Godot is, they can never know if or when he shows up—thus, if he (and we are taking his gender on the word of the boy, some boy—we don’t even know if it is the same boy—who comes round in the evening) has already come, they would not be in the position to know it. And even if someone comes to them and announces that “I am Godot,” the wait would not be over—without referentiality to the name, they would have to take on faith that that person is indeed Godot. Hence, all they can know is that they are waiting for Godot; and Godot is the name of that waiting itself. All philosophy can know is that it is waiting; and wisdom is the name of that waiting itself. Which brings us to Tina Turner’s eternal question, “what’s love got to do, got to do with it?” In order to begin to consider that, we have to first attempt to examine the notion of love itself. Perhaps we might begin to consider what the difficulty of the statement “I love you.” For, if love is a relationality between two persons—both of whom remain singular, and are attempting to respond to each other—this suggests that neither of them subsume the other under themselves. In other words, the other remains wholly other. If this is so, then the “you” in the statement always remains shrouded in mystery. And even if the “you” was replaced with the name of the person, the veiling remains: for, names refer both to the singularity that is the person, and also every other person bearing that name, at exactly the same time. To compound matters, the only time one has to utter a persons name is in their absence—thus, the correspondence of a name to that particular person is at best an affect of memory. And if we consider the notion of memory, we have to also open the register of forgetting—bringing along with it the problem that there is no object to forgetting. For instance, when one utters “I forgot,” all one is uttering is the fact that one has forgotten, and nothing more—the moment there is an object to the statement, one has strictly speaking remembered what one has forgotten. Moreover, we have no control over when forgetting happens to us. And since it is always already exterior to us, affects us, and has no necessary object, there is no reason to believe that every moment of memory might not bring with it a moment of forgetting. Hence, whenever we utter a name—even if we accept the correspondence between the utterance and the person in front of us—all we are doing is uttering the fact that we are naming. Thus, it is not so much that ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ but more appropriately, ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’—the relationality between its name and the phenomenon of its sweet smell can only be established after that moment of naming, that instance of catachresis. So, whenever one utters “I love you,” not only is it a performative statement, it is the very naming of that love—all you are doing is establishing a relationality between you and the other. And since there is no necessary referent—one is naming that referentiality as one utters it—this suggests that it is always already a symbolic statement; without which the mystery of the other cannot me maintained. In other words, one cannot love the other without maintaining this symbolic distance—through a ritual; in this case the utterance “I love you.” This might be why Valentine’s Day seems to provoke such a massive reaction: the most common one from people (besides florists) being, Valentine’s Day is mere commercialism. Those among the nay-sayers who maintain a soft spot for Karl Marx would proceed to call it the commodification of relationships; those who prefer the Gods would claim that the sanctity of relationships has been profaned; the gender theorists would note how the fact that males buy the gifts only serves to highlight the unequal power-relation between the genders. Whichever side and variation of the arguments they choose boils down to this: the discomfort lies in the fact that they are confronted with the notion of relationships moving into a mediated sphere. The underlying logic is that love is between two persons only; it should not only remain between them, but more pertinently, be an unmediated experience between two persons. Which of course completely misses the point. For, if we reopen the register that relationships are the result of a negotiation between two persons, there must then be a space between them for this very negotiation to occur. Otherwise, all that is happening is, one person is subsuming the other within their own sphere of understanding; effectively effacing the other. If that were the case, there would no longer be any relationality; all negotiation is gone and the other person is a mere extension of the self—one is in a masturbatory relationality with one’s imaginary. Hence, any relationship must always already carry with it the unknown, and possibly always unknowable. The other person is an enigma, remains—must remain—enigmatic to you. This is the only way in which the proclamation “I love you” remains singular, remains a love that is about the person as a singular person—and not merely about the qualities of the person, what the person is. For, if the mystery of the other is unveiled, then the love for the other person is also a completely transparent love: one that you can know thoroughly, calculate; a check-list. And if they are knowable, this suggests that they can also be negated, and hence, the love can also go away. Only when the love for the other person is an enigmatic one, one that cannot be understood, can that love potentially be an event—and if it is an event, then strictly speaking, it cannot be known before it happens; at best, it can be glimpsed as it is happening, or perhaps even only realised retrospectively. At the point in which it happens, it is a love that comes from elsewhere: this strange phenomenon is best captured in the colloquial phrase, I was struck by love;” or even more so by, “I was blinded by love.” This is a blinding to not only the subject of the encounter—the self—but also of the very object of that encounter, the “you”—all that can be said is that there is an encounter. And it is for this reason Cupid is blind: not just because love is random (and can happen to anyone at any time), but more importantly because even after it happens, both the reason you are in love, and the person you are in love with, remain blind to you. Since there is an unknowable relationality with the other person, the only way you can approach it is through a ritual. This is the lesson that religions have taught us: since one is never able to phenomenally experience the God(s), one has no choice but to approach them symbolically. These rituals are strictly speaking meaningless—the actual content is interchangeable—as it is the form that is important. Rituals allow us momentary glimpses at secrets; and secrets are never about their content(s). Rather, secrets entail the recognition that they are secrets; the secret lies in their form as secret. This can be seen when we consider how group secrets work: since the entire group knows the secret, clearly the content of the secret is not as important as the fact that only members within the group are privy to this secret. Occasionally the actual content can be so trivial that even other people outside the group might know the information; they just do not realize its significance. For instance, if I used my date of birth as my bank-account password, merely knowing when I was born would not instantly give you the key to my life savings. In order for that to happen, you would have had to recognise the significance of the knowledge of my birthday. This means that you have to know that you know something. Since the God(s) are, strictly speaking, unknowable, this suggests that rituals put one in a position to potentially experience the God(s). The meaningless gestures on Valentine’s Day play precisely this ritualised role. It is not so much what you give the other person, but the fact that you give it to them. The gift in this sense is very much akin to an offering; the gift opens the possibility of an exchange. Gift-giving does not guarantee that you will like what is returned; there is always a reciprocation of the gift, but what is returned to you is never known in advance, until the moment it is received. This means that the worst thing that one can do is not give the gift: that would be akin to a cutting off of all possibilities, a complete closing of all communication with the other person. This at the same time also means that you cannot wait for the other person to give you something before you get them their gift: if that were the scenario, the reciprocal gift would be nothing more than a calculated return. The only manner in which both persons can give true gifts is to offer them independently of the other person, whilst keeping them in mind. In this way, the two gifts are always already both uncalculated (in the sense of not knowing what the return is) and also a reciprocation for the other (without knowing whether the other person actually has a gift in the first place). Naturally, this would seem like an irrational, even stupid, way of buying gifts. But it is precisely the stupidity involved that saves the relationship from being banal—more importantly, stupidity prevents it from entering the mere profane. This is not to say that an enigmatic love cannot end—of course it can. However, the difference lies in the fact that if the relationality is wholly transparent, it is subsumed under reason—completely predictable, within the self, and thus never open to the possibility of otherness, exteriority, musing. A love that is an event is one that is also open to the possibility of the divine, the sacred—always already closer to the possibility of wisdom. If we establish that both love and wisdom are exterior, to our knowledge, and the finitude to our selves, this suggests that both are names for the possibility of openness to otherness. In other words, and what choice do we have here but to use the words of the other, the philosopher—the lover of wisdom—is a name for one who is waiting, and nothing more. But that still leaves us with the question of this uncomfortable relationality between philosophy and poetry. But before we address that question, we have to take a momentary detour, and consider the whether it is possible to call one a poet. For, if we take the notion of a poet to be one who reaches the highest levels of rhetoric (beyond the lawyer, and the orator, who only aim to either please the crowds, or convince by way of sophistry), then we must also acknowledge that one can only become a poet at the moment of seizing, the point of inspiration, by the muses. Without this divine moment, all (s)he can do is practice her craft. As no one can control when the muses make their appearance, one could always be practising in vain—in some way, one is always already practising to be least in the way when the muse whispers into one’s ear; one is practising so as not to be vain. And since one cannot know when the muse will appear, there is no time frame to the practising—unlike the lawyer who speaks against a clock, poetry knows no time; the only time that matters is the time appropriate to poetry itself. Thus, all the poet (if one can use this term) is practising for the possibility of effacing her/him self—and waiting. Thus, in order for poetry to occur, in order to be seized, the poet—along with all her concerns—must cease. In other words, there is no poet; there is only the possibility of poetry. However, even as there is no time frame to this waiting, even as all we can say is that poetry is a name for waiting, the one who is practising is always already also in time. And since (s)he is in a symbolic relationality with the possibility of poetry, this suggests that the practising is her sacrifice, and time is precisely what she is sacrificing. Here, it might be helpful to turn to a strange source when it comes to poetry—Georges Bataille—and consider his teachings in the first volume of The Accursed Share where he reminds us that, the “essence [of sacrifice] is to consume profitlessly .” This is where each exchange is beyond rationality, beyond calculability, beyond reason itself, “unsubordinated to the ‘real’ order and occupied only with the present.” He continues: Sacrifice destroys that which it consecrates. It does not have to destroy as fire does; only the tie that connected the offering to the world of profitable activity is severed, but this separation has the sense of a definitive consumption; the consecrated offering cannot be restored to the real order.” (58) Since there is no need for a physical change in the object of sacrifice—“it does not have to destroy as fire does”—this suggests that the tie is severed symbolically. Hence, there is an aspect of trans-substantiation in this sacrifice: the form remains the same; in fact there is no perceivable change—this is the point at which all phenomenology fails—but there is always already a difference, an absolute separation from the “real order,” from logic, calculability, reason. The object of sacrifice, the victim [,] is a surplus taken from the mass of useful wealth…Once chosen, he is the accursed share , destined for violent consumption. But the curse tears him away from the order of things…” (59). And it is this tearing away from the order of things—the order of rationality—that “restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane” (55). For, only when it is no longer useful, when it is no longer abstracted—subjected, subsumed under—merely a use-value, can the object be an object as such, can a subject be a subject as such; be a singularity. Thus, it is never so much who or what is sacrificed, but the fact that there is a sacrifice. So even as (s)he is sacrificing her time to poetry, it is always already beyond her knowledge whether what (s)he is doing is actually preparing her for poetry or not—all (s)he can know is that she is sacrificing and nothing more. Hence, all (s)he can do is to open her self to the possibility of this relationality—all (s)he can do is be in love with poetry. At the moment the muse whispers into her ear, (s)he ceases to be, and becomes a medium for poetry—and since this possession is always already beyond our cognitive knowledge, this is also a moment of divine wisdom. In other words, there is no difference between poetry and wisdom—the moment of poetry is the moment of wisdom. And this might be the very reason for the philosopher’s aversion to poets. Not so much because they may corrupt the youth (this is after all the aim of all thinking, all philosophy), but precisely because in order to do so, the philosopher must wait for a moment of possession, for divine musing, for poetry. Hence, all thought, all thinking, all philosophy, is nothing but the waiting for the possibility of poetry itself. (shrink)

Purpose of the article There is relatively a big number of brands in the market of laptops nowadays in Albania. It appears that the number of brands offered in this market could easily be compared to the number of brands in Europe and even broader. The purpose of this study is to help Albanian vendors understand the criteria that consumers take into consideration when they make the decision to purchase a laptop. Methodology/methods The research is based on the collection and (...) the analyses of the primary data collected through interviews to people like managers or employees who work in the sector of trading laptops or in businesses like education where laptops are broadly used recently; then a survey is done through a questionnaire delivered to customers who already own and use a laptop and customers who are potential buyers of laptops. Scientific aim The aim of the research is to identify if there are any relationships between the demographics of the consumers and the criteria of buying a laptop; on the other hand, to find out how is the relationship between the demographics and the features of different brands. Findings The study found out that Albanian consumers have good knowledge of laptops and their brands, and they use different sources of information for making their decisions in buying a laptop; it is found that there are relationships between some demographics like age or gender and the appraisal for some attributes of the laptops like price, design and high graphics card; it is also found that some technical features and other attributes of using laptops are some of the determinants that influence the laptops’ purchases. Conclusions It is realized that one of the most important demographics of the consumers is their age. Some core features like RAM, ROM, battery life, processor quality, light weight or attributes that are connected to the purposes of using the laptop computers like practicality and mobility in using them, work and studying processes, quick access to the internet are determinant factors which influence the decision making process of purchasing a laptop. I would recommend that future researches be focused also on the relationship between the customers’ income and their preferred brand or ranking brands according to the customers’ preferences. Such studies should also extend outside the city of Tirana. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Images >> Good HopeCarla Liesching Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 111]Carla Liesching is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, writing, collage, sculpture, bookmaking, and design. Grounded in experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa, she considers the intersections of representation, knowledge, and power, with a focus on colonial histories and enduring constructions of race and geography. Carla's ongoing project, Good Hope, was published by MACK (...) in 2021, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Aperture Paris Photo First Book Award, and the Arles 2022 Prix du Livre in the Photo-Text Category. An excerpt from Good Hope is also featured in On Whiteness, by SPBH Editions. Carla was a 2021 winner of the Open Walls Arles competition presented by The British Journal of Photography and exhibited work during Rencontres d'Arles Festival in 2021 and 2022. She is a 2021 Light Work Grant recipient and the 2022 recipient of the Silver Eye Fellowship, culminating in a photo-sculptural installation at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh. Carla was recently named a Foam Talent, with exhibitions at Foam Museum in Amsterdam, the Deutsche Börse Foundation in Frankfurt, along with a solo exhibition of Good Hope through PhMuseum in Bologna. Carla lives between South Africa and Ithaca. In Ithaca, she works as Visiting Critic in Cornell University's Art Architecture and Planning Department; as Lecturer in the Art, Art History and Architecture Department at Ithaca College; as faculty at the International Center of Photography; and as coordinator of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell. As part of her socially engaged practice, Carla is also a youth educator focused on image-making, visual literacy, and self-publishing as vehicles for expression and empowerment. [End Page 112] Click for larger view View full resolution'As soon as you are in a proper stage of defence you shall search for the best place for gardens, the best and fattest ground in which everything planted or sown will thrive.' Click for larger view View full resolution—Instructions from the Dutch East India Company inscribed on a yellowing sheet of parchment, 1651.1[End Page 113] Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 114]iYes, there are facts and figures to account for, timelines to trace, but have I told you of today's newspapers? Headlines like: 'Land Justice', 'Expropriation without Compensation', 'Revolution or Reform?' Have I told you of the monuments removed in the 'riots'? Or the groundsmen in green overalls scrubbing graffiti, repairing broken fountains, collecting debris? Black men White bosses still call 'boys'? Have I told you of the doves cooing gently, perched atop the sleeping bodies of migrant families on the lawns? Have I told you of the White children from the Cape of Good Hope Seminary dressed in their afternoon 'civilian clothes'? Or of the more racially integrated group from Mseki High in their grey-and-turquoise uniforms surrounding me on the main steps leading to the garden? The cacophony of lunch-time chatter, chip packets crinkling, the flap-flap of wings as seagulls scavenge for tasty morsels? Have I told you of the signs pointing to the Scientific Pleasure Garden? Or of the gift store filled with locally sourced flower oils, handmade candles, Delft-blue china tea-sets and postcards depicting the early colony? And what of Cecil John Rhodes cast in greening bronze, flanked by a Madagascar Cycad and a Queen Palm, announcing: Your Hinterland is There? Have I told you of the small rock in the corner of the vegetable garden with a label hidden beneath weeds? The arrival of the Dutch to establish a refreshment station, providing fresh produce for the ships plying the spice route, marked the end of a free and independent existence for the native Gorinhaiqua Khoikhoi. And what of the large label at the stone-walled entrance? A story of how a garden in 1654 brought together continents and affected the course of history. A story of how plants in the form of pepper, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon changed the world economy. Have I told you the garden is the cause of it all? [End... (shrink)