Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, (...) Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them. (shrink)

Increasingly, research in women's health and healthcare foregrounds women's experience. Despite the contribution that explorations of women's ‘lived life’ makes to our understandings, the concern of these feminist authors is the absence of in‐depth analysis of the complexity of experience and the contexts in which women's experiences of health are constituted. In this paper, authors extend current understandings of the lived life by complicating notions of knowledge, experience, language and ideologies. These ideas challenge taken‐for‐granted assumptions that underlie current women's healthcare (...) practices, disrupting the reinscription of patriarchal ideologies and generating new possibilities for nursing practice. (shrink)

Critical Theory and Animal Liberation is the first collection to look at the human relationship with animals from the critical or 'left' tradition in political and social thought. The contributions in this volume highlight connections between our everyday treatment of animals and other forms of oppression, violence, and domination. Breaking with past treatments that have framed the problem as one of 'animal rights,' the authors instead depict the exploitation and killing of other animals as a political question of the first (...) order. (shrink)

This essay explores some relationships between social structures or systems and the internal psychological structures or systems of individuals. After defining evil, pastoral counseling, and structures or systems, I present examples of persons affected by social systems of power who have sought counseling. I present a form of counseling known as Internal Family System Therapy (IFS) and show with an extended example how I have worked with clients using this approach. In this process the client is guided to use "Self-leadership" (...) in healing and transforming inner conflict between various subpersonalities or "parts." I then compare the IFS approach to one used by mediators in community conflict transformation and peacebuilding. (shrink)

Astrobiologists are aware that extraterrestrial life might differ from known life, and considerable thought has been given to possible signatures associated with weird forms of life on other planets. So far, however, very little attention has been paid to the possibility that our own planet might also host communities of weird life. If life arises readily in Earth-like conditions, as many astrobiologists contend, then it may well have formed many times on Earth itself, which raises the question whether one or (...) more shadow biospheres have existed in the past or still exist today. In this paper, we discuss possible signatures of weird life and outline some simple strategies for seeking evidence of a shadow biosphere. Key Words: Weird life—Multiple origins of life—Biogenesis—Biomarkers—Extremophiles—Alternative biochemistry. Astrobiology 9, 241–249. (shrink)

Our analysis in this paper unfolds on two levels: a critique of the ‘realities’ of graduate nursing education and an argument to sustain its ‘ideals’. We open for discussion an aspect of graduate nursing education dominated by instrumental reason, namely the research industry, using an internal critique approach developed by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno of the Early Frankfurt School. As we explain, internal critique arises out of, and relies on, the mismatch between goals, or ‘ideals’, and existing realities. Thinking (...) about ‘ideals’ of the academy, we draw on Hans-Georg Gadamer's view of the university as a place to think freely, creatively, and critically. The contemporary realities of the university, on the other hand, that emphasize the market values of the research industry forcefully shape nursing academic scholarship in a particular direction. In our attempt to recognize and disrupt the forces of the research industry with its instrumental reason, we consider Judith Butler's writings on how norms operate in society. We show that our growing involvement in the research industry makes it very difficult to disentangle ourselves from that situation. The values of the research industry actually suppress the very ideals of education and scholarship that we would like to uphold. As a contra-force, the internal critique of the ‘existing realities’ in the graduate nursing education unmasks the tyranny of the research industry and makes visible the importance of sustaining the higher goals and ideals in nursing scholarship. (shrink)

This paper states the author's understanding of the doctrines of the Christian faith in the light of her scientific background and her interpretation of current evolutionary, neuropsychologi–cal, and other scientific theories. It contains the actual ordination vows and her response to them, based upon an outline of questions suggested by the United Church of Christ.

Feminist scholarship on the relative importance of working-class institutional strength in the economy and in the state has led to two divergent conclusions. Radical feminists argue that working-class institutions dominated by men produce male-biased outcomes; socialist feminists hold that working-class institutions promote classwide interests that benefit women as well as men. This article addresses this debate by applying generic and gendered working-class strength models of the welfare state in an examination of women's public pension quality. Quality is measured as women's (...) average pension compared with that of men, relative to women's average earnings, and compared with the average wage in the society. The authors find support for the socialist feminist view. Working-class institutions, having historically organized and represented the interests of working men, benefit women by improving the security and adequacy of their retirement incomes, but it is women's access to working-class economic and political institutions that brings greater economic equality with men in old age. (shrink)

Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice addresses interconnections between speciesism, sexism, racism, and homophobia, clarifying why social justice activists in the twenty-first century must challenge intersecting forms of oppression. This anthology presents bold and gripping--sometimes horrifying--personal narratives from fourteen activists who have personally explored links of oppression between humans and animals, including such exploitative enterprises as cockfighting, factory farming, vivisection, and the bushmeat trade. Sister Species asks readers to rethink how they view "others," how they affect animals with their (...) daily choices, and how they might bring change for all who are abused. These essays remind readers that women have always been important to social justice and animal advocacy, and they urge each of us to recognize the links that continue to bind all oppressed individuals. The astonishing honesty of these contributors demonstrates with painful clarity why every woman should be an animal activist and why every animal activist should be a feminist. Contributors are Carol J. Adams, Tara Sophia Bahna-James, Karen Davis, Elizabeth Jane Farians, Hope Ferdowsian, Linda Fisher, Twyla François, Christine Garcia, A. Breeze Harper, Sangamithra Iyer, Pattrice Jones, Lisa Kemmerer, Allison Lance, Ingrid Newkirk, Lauren Ornelas, and Miyun Park. (shrink)

According to the Particularist Theory of Events, events are real things that have a spatiotemporal location. I argue that some events do not have a spatial location in the sense required by the theory. These events are ordinary, nonmental events like Smith’s investigating the murder and Carol’s putting her coat on the chair. I discuss the significance of these counterexamples for the theory.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.2 (2000) 116-136 [Access article in PDF] Being, Time, and Definition: Toward a Semiotics of Figural Rhetoric Carol Poster For if History in the transferred sense of particular books called "histories," is rather apt to be false: nothing but History in the wider and higher sense will ever lead us to the truth. The Future is unknown and unknowable. The Present is turning to Past (...) even as we are trying to know it. Only the Past itself abides our knowledge. --George Saintsbury, A Letter BookDefining and classifying figures of speech and thought have been among the more important tasks of rhetoricians and grammarians for more than two millennia. The inventional focus, however, of much modern rhetorical theory has tended to relegate figuration either, on the one hand, to the domains of literary criticism or linguistics (the heirs of ancient grammar) or, on the other hand, to an ancillary position. The concomitant marginalization of the study of figures has had a significant effect upon contemporary scholarship in historical rhetoric. Many of the seminal scholarly works on the history of rhetoric have denigrated or minimized the importance of figural rhetoric. As Brian Vickers (1990, 294-95) has mentioned, George Kennedy and numerous other historians of rhetoric (e.g., Clarke 1996, 34) tend to condemn the teaching of figural rhetoric as dreary, tedious, and otiose. Often, the very periods themselves in which the study of the figures was pursued most vigorously and extensively are omitted from or condemned by modern scholarly discussion. As Marjorie Curry Woods has pointed out (1995, 73-78), biases against the medieval period, especially as found in Charles Sears Baldwin (1928) and Kennedy (1963, 1980) have in many ways defined the contours of our discipline, especially our attitudes toward the study of figures and tropes. Late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the periods of "decline" so deplored by Baldwin, Vickers, Kennedy, and others, were those in which figural rhetoric flourished, and both the sheer [End Page 116] volume of extant figural treatises and the continuity of figural rhetoric from the Hellenistic period through such contemporary semipopular books as Arthur Quinn's Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase (1982) and William Espy's The Garden of Eloquence: A Rhetorical Bestiary (1983) demand attention from the historical scholar. Along with the trivialization of figures in contemporary rhetoric has come a drastic oversimplification of the semiotics of figural terminology, which, in turn, contributes to the trivialization of many recent accounts of figures. To recover a more complex understanding of the semiotics of figural terms, we must start with a historical understanding of figuration, because rhetorical terms are encased in numerous historical strata that determine our understandings of them. 1 As Richard Rorty (1984, 49-75) argues concerning the historiography of philosophy, rational and historical reconstruction are mutually interdependent. A brief history of figural rhetoric From antiquity through the present, lists of figures have either occupied substantial sections of general treatises on rhetoric or grammar or have been the subject of specifically figural handbooks. Use of what we might term highly figured speech appears to predate the development of theoretical models for analysis of figures by many centuries. The Homeric epics, which were to provide the standard examples of rhetorical figures for many subsequent centuries, use patterns of speech later to be named and classified as rhetorical figures, but neither figural terminology nor self-conscious reflection upon figures qua figures appears in the epics. Similarly, although Gorgias was renowned for his use of the "Gorgianic" figures that later took his name, there is no evidence that he attempted systematic catologuing or development of specialized terminology for the figures. The testimonia describing his use of poetic words and figures (DK82a1, DK82a2, DK82a4, DK82a32--translated in Sprague 1972) do not attribute to him any invention of technical terminology.The question of invention of specific terminology for rhetorical figures is part of a more general historical question of the development of rhetoric as a self-conscious field. As Thomas Cole (1991) and Edward Schiappa (1991) have pointed out, the first... (shrink)

Materializing absence, Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy and Kate Woodthorpe -- Never say die: CPR in hospital space, Susie Page -- Making hospice space, Ken Worpole -- Dying spaces in dying places, Carol Komaromy -- The materialities of absence after stillbirth: historical perspectives, Jan Bleyen -- Distributed personhood and the transformation of agency: an anthropological perspective on inquests, Susan Langer -- Behind closed doors? corpses and mourners in English and American funeral premises, Sheila Harper -- Private grief in public (...) spaces: interpreting memorialisation in the contemporary cemetary, Kate Woodthorpe -- Wandering lines and cul-de-sacs: trajectories of ashes in the United Kingdom, Leonie Kellaher, Jenny Hockey and David Prendergast -- Natural burial: the de-materialising of death?, Andy Clayden, Jenny Hockey and Mark Powell -- What will the neighbours say? reactions to field and garden burial, Tony Walter and Clare Gittings -- Memorialising the suicide victim: "walking the walk," Caroline Simone -- Potent reminders: an examination of responses to roadside memorials in Ireland, Una McConville and Regina McQuillan -- Geographies of the spirit world, Douglas J. Davies -- Recovering presence, Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy and Kate Woodthorpe. (shrink)

When The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams was published more than twenty years ago, it caused a immediate stir among writers and thinkers, feminists and animal rights activists alike. Never before had the relationship between patriarchy and meat eating been drawn so clearly, the idea that there lies a strong connection between the consumption of women and animals so plainly asserted. But, as the 21 personal stories in this anthology show, the impact (...) of this provocative text on womens lives continues to this day, and it is as diverse as it is revelatory. One writer attempts to reconcile her feminist-vegan beliefs with her Muslim upbringing; a second makes the connection between animal abuse and her own self-destructive tendencies. A new mother discusses the sexual politics of breastfeeding, while another pens a letter to her young son about all she wishes for him in the future. Many others recall how the book inspired them to start careers in the music business, animal advocacy, and food. No matter whether they first read it in college or later in life, whether they are in their late teens or early forties, these writers all credit The Sexual Politics of Meat in some way with the awakening of their identities as feminists, activists, and women. Even if you havent read the original work, youre sure to be moved and inspired by these tales of growing up and, perhaps more important, waking up to the truths around us. (shrink)

The essays collected in this issue offer complementary critical perspectives on the mature lyric work of Derek Walcott, the acclaimed Nobel laureate from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. The centerpiece of the ensemble is a previously unpublished essay in which Walcott’s reflections on poetics illuminate his project in the masterpiece, _Omeros._ Other contributions by literary scholars in North America and the Caribbean focus on fundamental dimensions of Walcott’s craft and on such thematic preoccupations as the intersection of pictorial and (...) verbal modes of representation, the deployment of nuanced intertextual strategies, the invention of a viable artistic identity in a postcolonial intercultural milieu, and the psychosocial modeling of the process of literary apprenticeship. _Contributors. _Edward Baugh, Peter Burian, Gregson Davis, Carol Dougherty, Joseph Farrell, Judith Harris, Timothy Hofmeister, Derek Walcott. (shrink)

The essays collected in this issue offer complementary critical perspectives on the mature lyric work of Derek Walcott, the acclaimed Nobel laureate from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. The centerpiece of the ensemble is a previously unpublished essay in which Walcott’s reflections on poetics illuminate his project in the masterpiece, _Omeros._ Other contributions by literary scholars in North America and the Caribbean focus on fundamental dimensions of Walcott’s craft and on such thematic preoccupations as the intersection of pictorial and (...) verbal modes of representation, the deployment of nuanced intertextual strategies (especially in relation to the Greco-Roman canon), the invention of a viable artistic identity in a postcolonial intercultural milieu, and the psychosocial modeling of the process of literary apprenticeship. _Contributors. _Edward Baugh, Peter Burian, Gregson Davis, Carol Dougherty, Joseph Farrell, Judith Harris, Timothy Hofmeister, Derek Walcott. (shrink)

This narrative symposium examines the relationship of bioethics practice to personal experiences of illness. A call for stories was developed by Tod Chambers, the symposium editor, and editorial staff and was sent to several commonly used bioethics listservs and posted on the Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics website. The call asked authors to relate a personal story of being ill or caring for a person who is ill, and to describe how this affected how they think about bioethical questions and the (...) practice of medicine. Eighteen individuals were invited to submit full stories based on review of their proposals. Twelve stories are published in this symposium, and six supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. Authors explore themes of vulnerability, suffering, communication, voluntariness, cultural barriers, and flaws in local healthcare systems through stories about their own illnesses or about caring for children, partners, parents and grandparents. Commentary articles by Arthur Frank, Bradley Lewis, and Carol Taylor follow the collection of personal narratives. (shrink)

Marjorie Glicksman Grene (1910–2009) wrote on existentialism as a philosophy with a specific focus on the work of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. Her work played an important role in introducing continental philosophy to North American and British thought as she lived and worked on both sides of the Atlantic. While she gained her PhD from Radcliffe College, Harvard University, she also studied as an exchange student in Germany from 1931 to 1933, had a postdoctoral fellowship in Copenhagen in (...) 1936, lived and worked on farms in Illinois and Ireland, and taught at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States, including, for the longest period, at the University of California, Davis (1965–78). Her interpretations are based on a thorough knowledge of the history of philosophy and a wide range of philosophical areas, including European philosophy; Grene attended lectures by Heidegger and Karl Jaspers while on exchange in Europe. While her interest was first piqued by Heidegger’s thought, further research led her to investigate Jaspers’s willingness to combine existential philosophy with the life sciences. I split her often integrated discussions into a focus on five primary thinkers: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty, with the most detailed analysis of Sartre as Grene engages with his work in the most depth. (shrink)

Discursive accounts of the body have been prominent recently. While acknowledging the usefulness of these, the author, drawing upon specific philosophers of the body and a wide range of other theorists, focuses attention on the experiencing body which she refers to as 'creatural existence’. Thinking in terms of the creatural, she argues, can better situate human beings in their environment, thus emphasizing a kind of 'ecological notion of subjectivity’, in which place-based existence is understood anew. The educational implications of focusing (...) on what bodies 'do' and not so much in terms of how they are socially inscribed, presents them as practico-sensory totalities which should perhaps be seen as systems rather than an as mere organisms or entities. Such an articulation of creatural existence emphasizes animality, and in so doing reminds us of the centrality of the senses in all knowing and doing, including crucially, in relation to those practices which we have understood as 'work'. Multi-sensorial education is a major sub-theme of the book and the author argues persuasively for this by means of a critical analysis of the ocularcentrism that is characteristic of contemporary culture. (shrink)

William of Poitiers began his career as a knight before studying in the schools of Poitiers and entering the Church. He became a chaplain in the household of William the Conqueror, and was able to give a first-hand account of the events of 1066-7. The Gesta Guillelmi, his unfinished biography of the king, is particularly important for its detailed description of William's campaigns in Normandy, the careful preparations he made for the invasion of England, the battle of Hastings and the (...) establishment of Norman power after the Conquest. It is a mine of information of military tactics and the conduct of war in the eleventh century. Though written from the point of view of the Norman court, it gives what is probably the most authentic account of these momentous events. This edition, by the late R. H. C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall, with facing-page English translation of the Latin text, provides the first complete English translation, as well as a full historical introduction and detailed notes. (shrink)

Vulnerability is one of the least examined concepts in research ethics. Vulnerability was linked in the Belmont Report to questions of justice in the selection of subjects. Regulations and policy documents regarding the ethical conduct of research have focused on vulnerability in terms of limitations of the capacity to provide informed consent. Other interpretations of vulnerability have emphasized unequal power relationships between politically and economically disadvantaged groups and investigators or sponsors. So many groups are now considered to be vulnerable in (...) the context of research, particularly international research, that the concept has lost force. In addition, classifying groups as vulnerable not only stereotypes them, but also may not reliably protect many individuals from harm. Certain individuals require ongoing protections of the kind already established in law and regulation, but attention must also be focused on characteristics of the research protocol and environment that present ethical challenges. (shrink)

The United States, unlike most developed countries, continues to use the marital couple as the taxable unit for its income tax. This continued use of the marital unit— like its original establishment —rests on cultural preferences. This Article suggests that the roles of marriage, religion and taxation in America are essential factors in America’s retention of the marital unit. Part I examines the distinctive contribution marriage — especially the traditional single-earner breadwinner marriage — makes to the political life of the (...) country. Part II explores the similar role of religion. Part III describes some congressional efforts over the past two decades to aid, ostensibly, married couples through the income tax. Part IV concludes that although these actions have not been the most effective or efficient means of helping married couples, they nevertheless serve an important expressive purpose. Tax has been the arena for many political issues since the founding of the nation. Consequently, congressional actions and rhetoric regarding the income tax’s "marriage penalty" reinforce the marital unit/joint return and reaffirm — even if only symbolically — a national commitment to marriage as instrumental to American democracy. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary study follows an international and ecumenical meeting of twenty-four scholars held in New York at Easter 2000: the Incarnation Summit. After an opening chapter, which summarizes and evaluates twelve major questions concerning the Incarnation, five chapters are dedicated to the biblical roots of this central Christian doctrine. A patristic and medieval section corrects misinterpretations and retrieves for today the significance of the Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath, as well as clarifying Aquinas' enduring metaphysical interpretation of the Incarnation. (...) The volume then moves to theological and philosophical debates: three scholars take up such systematic issues as belief in the Incarnation, the self-emptying that it involves, and its compatibility with divine timelessness. The remaining four essays consider the place of the doctrine of the Incarnation in literature, ethics, art, and preaching. There is a fruitful dialogue between experts in a wide range of areas and the international reputation of the participants reflects and guarantees the high quality of this joint work. The result is a well researched, skilfully argued, and, at times, provocative volume on the central Christian belief: the Incarnation of the Son of God. (shrink)

I argue that the debate between proponents of substance causation and proponents of causation by powers, as to whether substances or their powers are causes, hinges on whether or not powers are self-exemplifying or non-self-exemplifying properties. Substance causation is committed to powers being non-self-exemplifying properties while causation by powers is committed to powers being self-exemplifying properties. I then argue that powers are non-self-exemplifying properties, in support of substance causation.

Philosopher Davis argues that Christian belief in the resurrection is rational on historical, philosophical, and theological grounds. Each of the book's ten chapters takes up a different aspect of the Christian concept of bodily resurrection and subsequently deals with such matters as perservation of personal identity and soul-body dualism, issues in biblical scholarship, and the reliability of New Testament accounts.

Christian Philosophical Theology constitutes a Christian philosopher's look at various crucial topics in Christian theology, including belief in God, the nature of God, the Trinity, christology, the resurrection of Jesus, the general resurrection, redemption, and theological method. The book is tightly argued, and amounts to a coherent explanation of and case for the Christian world view. While the work is written from a broadly Reformed Protestant perspective and the author does not avoid controversial topics, the aim is to present a (...) 'merely Christian' world view. That is, Stephen T. Davis attempts to write as much as possible from the perspective of the broad centre of Christian understanding. (shrink)