Since the turn of the twenty-first century, we have seen a revival of interest in world literature and, in its wake, interest in its parent discipline: comparative literature. Many of the more recent interventions charge these disciplines, including the subdiscipline of poetics, with Eurocentrism. Though the debate ranges most intensively in US academe, Chinese scholars also have increasingly ventured onto this terrain. The present contribution elaborates on the "re-orientation" of comparative poetics and on the possibility of a world poetics.

Abstract We use a controlled laboratory experiment design to test rational choice theory on student whistleblowing. We examine reporting costs by comparing actual reporting behavior under anonymous and non-anonymous reporting channels. Reporting benefits are explored by considering the influence on reporting of group versus individual reward systems. We find that the type of reporting channel does not significantly influence student reporting behavior. Rewarding students based on group test scores results in significantly higher reporting rates compared to a system rewarding students (...) based on individual test scores. Our laboratory research design allows for the measurement of actual reporting. The high reporting rates in this study emphasize the importance of clearly stating what is considered to be unethical behavior and directly asking students about their ethical environment. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10805-012-9154-7 Authors Iris Jenkel, St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, USA Jason J. Haen, St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, USA Journal Journal of Academic Ethics Online ISSN 1572-8544 Print ISSN 1570-1727. (shrink)

Persistent public distrust of food additives is often explained in terms of safety and health issues. The broad variety of ethical, aesthetic, and cultural concerns tends to be structurally ignored by food engineers and occasionally even by consumers themselves. The public controversy of food additives—commonly known as “E-numbers”—in the Netherlands is a case in point. Two discursive mechanisms prevent these concerns from becoming legitimate public issues: irrationalization and privatization. But these consumer concerns may not be as unreasonable as they seem, (...) and they may even turn out to be not that private. As long as ethical, aesthetic and cultural concerns are not recognized by food engineers as legitimate issues, the controversy of food additives is not likely to find closure. Moreover, this lack of recognition blocks the opportunity for meaningful dialogue and trust building between food technology developers, policy makers, citizens and consumers. (shrink)

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

Scholars increasingly point toward schools as meaningful contexts in which to provide psychosocial care for refugee children. Collaborative mental health care in school forms a particular practice of school-based mental health care provision. Developed in Canada and inspired by systemic intervention approaches, collaborative mental health care in schools involves the formation of an interdisciplinary care network, in which mental health care providers and school partners collaborate with each other and the refugee family in a joint assessment of child development and (...) mental health, as well as joint intervention planning and provision. It aims to move away from an individual perspective on refugee children’s development, toward an engagement with refugee families’ perspectives on their migration histories, cultural background and social condition in shaping assessment and intervention, as such fostering refugee empowerment, equality, and participation in the host society. Relating to the first stage of van Yperen’s four-stage model for establishing evidence-based youth care, this article aims to engage in an initial exploration of the effectiveness of a developing school-based collaborative mental health care practice in Leuven, Belgium. First, we propose a detailed description, co-developed through reflection on case documents, written process reflections, intervision, an initial identification of intervention themes, and articulating interconnections with scholarly literature on transcultural and systemic refugee trauma care. Second, we engage in an in-depth exploration of processes and working mechanisms, obtained through co-constructed clinical case analysis of case work collected through our practice in schools in Leuven, Belgium. Our descriptive analysis indicates the role of central processes that may operate as working mechanisms in school-based collaborative mental health care and points to how collaborative mental health care may mobilize the school and the family-school interaction as a vehicle of restoring safety and stability in the aftermath of cumulative traumatization. Our analysis furthermore forms an important starting point for reflections on future research opportunities, and central clinical dynamics touching upon power disparities and low-threshold access to mental health care for refugee families. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology (Lorenz, Vollmer) and value-driven decision theory (Pugh) are used to explain the fundamental properties of consciousness. It is shown that this approach is compatible with global workspace theory (Baars) and global neuronal workspace theory (De Haene). The emotions are, however, that what drives consciousness. A hypothetical evolutionary tree of the emotions is given – intended to show that consciousness evolves and is probably qualitatively different in different groups of animals.