The comparative study of Romanian and Hungarian Neopagan organizations with an ethnocentric or "Ethno-pagan" ideology is an exploratory research aimed at mapping the similarities and the differences between these religious minorities, with a highlight on their level of institutionalization, their core values and degree of political mobilization. Zalmoxian groups and organizations promote the revival of Romanian spirituality through a process of reconnection to its ancient, supposedly Dacian and Thracian roots; by the same token, Hungarian Shamanist movements are aimed (...) at recovering a supposedly lost spirituality, built-in into the deepest layers of Hungarian language and cultural practices. A web rhetoric analysis of these organizations is carried out in order to assess audience involvement, communication style and the use of multimedia tools to convey their messages. (shrink)

Populistic political discourse often portrays ethnic minorities as threats to the majority society. However, the deeper characteristics of perceived threats have not been sufficiently empirically investigated. The goal of this study is to identify the similarities and differences in intergroup threats perceived by Slovak majority from Roma, Muslims, and ethnic Hungarian minorities. The participants included 1244 adults who were instructed to write the first five associations that came to mind when thinking about one of the minorities. Our findings indicate (...) that power threat was dominant from the Hungarian minority and safety threat from the Roma and Muslim minorities. Moreover, the safety threat from the Roma minority related mainly to theft and violence, while from Muslims it was terrorism. Mapping and addressing specific threats associated with different minorities can help explain misperceptions and reduce prejudice against them. (shrink)

In "Peripheralities: 'Minor' Literatures, Women's Literature, and Adrienne Orosz de Csicser's Novels" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses events surrounding Adrienne Orosz de Csicser's work. For the contextualization of the events Tötösy de Zepetnek employs his own framework of "comparative cultural studies" here applied to "minor literatures" and women's literature and Shunqing Cao's "variation theory." While Orosz's novels are not considered exceptional, the author achieved notoriety after locked up in a mental institution. In addition to three published novels, in an unpublished (...) novel Orosz narrates her love affair with a Roman Catholic bishop. Knowledge about her novel's contents resulted in the bishop orchestrating Orosz's commitment to a mental hospital. The context in which Orosz's texts are located in is the socio-political situation in Hungarian society prior to and shortly after the First World War. (shrink)

The author of this paper presents the main interpretative orientations regarding the concept on the minority being of the reformed Transylvanian bishop Makkai Sándor who lived in the inter-war period. The author tries to point out the philosophical, moral, and existential sides of this problem which has become deep-rooted and permanent in the consciousness of the Hungarian intellectuals from Transylvania, and which has been known as the problem of the minority existential paradox. To accomplish this, the author (...) relies on the theoretical and methodological possibilities provided by the philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

Participants in this study were ethnic Hungarian secondary students attending high schools in Romania in which Hungarian was the primary language of instruction. Attitudes of participants toward ethnic and cultural groups were measured using a variation of the Bogardus (1933) Scale of Social Distance. Results were consistent with predictions based on Allport's intergroup contact theory. Students reported a wide range of tolerance levels for majority and minority ethnic groups with which they were likely to have contact in (...) Romania. However, the students reported little difference in tolerance levels for groups that are not a recognized part of the Romanian cultural landscape, such as people of Hispanic origin, and Native Americans. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the position of ethnic minority women in relation to their career-building in the Serbian higher education system and reaching decision-making positions. The author defines two hypotheses: that there are invisible biases in the sciences that put ethnic minority women in a challenging position when attempting to build a career in academia, and that these women encounter a glass ceiling when trying to reach more senior positions. The analysis is based on (...) 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian female teaching staff employed at two Serbian universities. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework and method was used in the analysis of interviews, along with narrative analysis. Analysis of the interviews showed that ethnic minority women adopt specific strategies when discussing and explaining their difficulties and opportunities in the higher education system of Serbia. The intersectional analysis indicates that ethnic minority women struggle with invisible biases at the individual level, and, due to the horizontal segregation in sciences, have to overcome a situation of double jeopardy in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics studies. The findings suggest that women from ethnic minorities face a glass ceiling in relation to obtaining decision-making positions. Namely, such positions are usually only guaranteed to them within their own ethnic enclaves at departments with majority female staff. However, positions higher than these are rarely attainable. (shrink)

The absence of a universally recognized definition of national minority is perceived as problematic by legal scholars on the international level as well as in domestic jurisdictions [Kymlicka, Will. 2015. Solidarity in diverse societies: Beyond neoliberal multiculturalism and welfare chauvinism. _Comparative Migration Studies_. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-015-0017-4, Ringelheim, Julie. 2010. Minority Rights in a Time of Multiculturalism-The Evolving Scope of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities. _Human rights law review_. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngp038, Velázquez, Elisa Ortega. 2017. Minority rights for (...) immigrants: From Multiculturalism to Civic Participation. _Mexican Law Review_, no. 1., Dimitras, Panayote Elias. 2004. _Recognition of minorities in Europe: Protecting rights and dignity_. London: Minority Rights Group International]. National minority under Czech law is defined by the Act on National Minorities, and the definition combines the objective and subjective criteria of Capotorti’s [Capotorti, Francesco. 1977. _Study on the Rights of Persons belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities_, UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/384/Add.1–7. p. 96] and Deschênes’ [Deschênes, Jules. 1985. _Proposal Concerning a Definition of the Term Minority_. UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/31. paragraph 181] definitions. However, the Czech Minority Act makes a distinction between ‘minorities that have traditionally and for a long time resided in the territory of the Czech Republic’ (§§ 8–12) and other minority groups, while there is no explicit criterion for differentiating among these groups objectively. Such absence of clearcut criteria is often relevant when certain minority groups claim unfavourable treatment due to the authorities’ perception of such national groups as being ‘immigrant’ as opposed to ‘autochthonous’. Additionally, recent case-law has shown that the most ‘traditional’ groups residing in the Czech territory, such as Moravians or Silesians, can equally lack state support, while it is typically argued by Courts that such groups lack ‘distinct features’, be it ethnic, linguistic and cultural, from the majority population and thus do not fall under the legal definition of national minorities (Verdict of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic, Ref No 7 As 324/2020-42, of 17 August 2021; Verdict of the Regional Court in Brno, Ref No 62 A 35/2020 − 186, of 8 October 2020). This paper combines doctrinal legal analysis with a socio-legal approach. The language of legislative acts and court verdicts is assessed with the methodology of critical discourse analysis, specifically the discourse-historical approach [Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2015. The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). In _Methods of Critical Discourse Studies_, 3rd edition, eds. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 23–61. London: Sage]. I focus on nomination, predication and argumentation strategies [Wodak, Ruth. 2009. The semiotics of racism: A critical discourse-historical analysis. In _Discourse, of Course: An overview of Research in Discourse studies_, ed. Jan Renkema. 311–326. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company] used by the judges in court verdicts and on the role of perceived ‘tradition’ of certain groups’ residence in the territory of the Czech Republic on their access to state support or, on the contrary, their marginalization. It is concluded that the current state of the Czech law does not allow for the spatial dynamics of minority groups, which are mostly apprehended as fixed categories based on the 19th century idea of nation states and on the 1920s perception of the Czechoslovak nation after the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Such approach does not allow for accommodating the rights for more up-to-date categories or for critical revisiting of the catalogue of minority groups as it was defined in the early 20th century. (shrink)

This paper examines the planning process and architecture of two public psychiatric institutions built around 1900 in Trieste and Lower Austria. From 1864, the building of new asylums was the responsibility of Crown land governments, which by the end of the nineteenth century had emerged as sites of power and self-presentation by minority groups and new political parties. At the same time, the area of asylum planning was establishing itself as a branch of asylum psychiatry and promoting the idea (...) of the asylum as model settlement, contributing to social reform. I analyse the interaction of psychiatrists, architects and government officials involved in planning the two institutions in the context of Crown land governments’ self-positioning within the empire and internationally . The Trieste asylum planners were working for a government controlled by Italian nationalists, but their desire for a ‘modern’ asylum turned them towards German models. The Christian Social government in Lower Austria sought to supplant Germany as the leader in this branch of science. The spatial arrangement and visual articulation of the two asylums is interpreted in the context of the interaction of psychiatry and the politics of regional autonomy. (shrink)

There are many different views on what role language plays in ethnic identification. This article is focused on the given issue based on the sample of the Cuban minority living in Slovakia. The topic is analyzed on a sample of Cubans living in the territory of Slovakia in a time frame ranging from 1 to 37 years as well as their descendants who come from mixed Slovak-Cuban families. In this article I am dealing with the impact of the Spanish, (...) Slovak, Hungarian, and English language. (shrink)

The article analyzes ethnic data collection pertaining to criminal justice in Hungary. With such a sensitive and delicate issue at hand, Hungary has decided on an evasive approach, resisting ethnic data collection by law enforcement authorities. The author argues that this approach has become one of the obstacles in fighting discrimination and ethnic profiling. Moreover, Hungary’s restrictive approach to ethno-national data classification also causes severe constitutional problems in other, noncriminal legal circumstances, where ethnic data is used in the context of (...) additional rights and affirmative protection provided for ethno-national minorities. The first part of the article describes general problems relating to ethnic data collection and analyses of the Hungarian minority protection framework, in particular, the minority self-government structure (a unique constitutional institution). The second part focuses on the criminal justice system; the author’s aim is to show that prohibiting the official recognition and collection of data on ethnicity by criminal justice authorities has potentially ethnically discriminatory consequences. (shrink)

The conference of Salat Levente, "The Challenge of Diversity Answers and Dilemmas".

The existence of Catholic communities in Moldavia has raised questions not for the Orthodox population from neighbourhood but mostly for the Hungarian and Romanian history researchers. The term „csangos” was first used in 1783 by Petru Zold, a priest, in order to describe these communities and the term remained as such in the Hungarian historyography (and in the last decade it has also been borrowed by the Romanian historyography) but is not accepted and used by the majority of (...) people belong- ing to the community. The present case-study dedicated to the villages situated near Roman attempts to answer some ques- tions related to the origin and evolution of these communities without the intention of an exhaustive study. (shrink)

After the unification process of 1918, in the former Hungarian State schools Romanian language was introduced as a teaching language. Consequently, the Hungarian as a teaching language was solely pre- served in the vocational schools. The governments showed little understanding toward the minorities’ vocational schools, aiming rather at the unification of the scholar system. The Roman Catholic Church sustained and administrated hundreds of elementary and secondary schools, many of them having a multi-secular history. Based on the documents from (...) the churches’ archives, this study presents the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to preserve and maintain all these schools. (shrink)

In societies divided on ethnic and religious lines, problems of democracy are magnified – particularly where groups are mobilized into parties. With the principle of majority rule, minorities should be less willing to endorse democratic institutions where their parties persistently lose elections. While such problems should also hamper transitions to democracy, several diverse Eastern European states have formed democracies even under these conditions. In this book, Sherrill Stroschein argues that sustained protest and contention by ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia (...) brought concessions on policies that they could not achieve through the ballot box, in contrast to Transcarpathia, Ukraine. In Romania and Slovakia, contention during the 1990s made each group accustomed to each other's claims and aware of the degree to which each could push its own. Ethnic contention became a de facto deliberative process that fostered a moderation of group stances, allowing democratic consolidation to slowly and organically take root. (shrink)

This dialogue between Paul Ricoeur and Sorin Antohi took place in Budapest on March 10, 2003 at Pasts, Inc., Center for Historical Studies, which is affiliated with Central European University (CEU). Ricoeur was the honorary president of Pasts, Inc., and its spiritus rector. On March 8, he had given a lecture on "History, Memory, and Forgetting" in the context of an international conference entitled "Haunting Memories? History in Europe after Authoritarianism," and organized by Pasts Inc. and the Körber Foundation. On (...) March 9, Ricoeur had received the first Honoris Causa doctorate ever granted by CEU. Ricoeur had already visited Hungary in 1933. At the time, he was participating in a Boy Scouts European jamboree at Gödöllö (where he also saw Horthy on his white horse). After WWII, he went back to Hungary to meet with Lukács. Mona Antohi has transcribed and edited the recording of the dialogue. The two interlocutors have then made some minor revisions. The original text, in French, is available on the website of Pasts, Inc. (www.ceu.hu/pasts). This English version, translated and annotated by Gil Anidjar, will be included in Sorin Antohi's book, Talking History. Making Sense of Pasts, forthcoming in 2006 from CEU Press. His own Romanian translation of the dialogue was published in the Iasi-based journal, Xenopoliana (3-4, 2004), as was the Hungarian translation by Réka Toth, which appeared in the Budapest-based journal, 2000 (November-December 2003). (shrink)

At the beginning of the 16 th century, Transylvania had been an officially Catholic land belonging to the Kingdom of Hungary and led by an elite consisting of three nations, the Hungarian nobles (increasingly referred to as the Hungarian nation), the Saxons and the Szeklers. However, the general population, deprived of any political power, consisted of Orthodox Romanians. In other words, in Transylvania the Latin West met the Byzantine Orient. The old Hungary fell apart between 1526 and 1541, (...) its central regions taken by the Ottoman Empire, the west and the north by the Habsburgs, while the eastern part, Transylvania, became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty. At the same time, various Protestant trends made their presence felt among the leading nations, eventually crystallizing in the form of Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism. In the space of three decades (1540–1570) these rival denominations gained legal status and joined Catholicism as the official religions of the country. Catholicism became a marginal denomination, deprived of assets and of its hierarchy. Under Protestant pressure, the Orthodox Romanians were still kept away from power. The last three decades of the century saw some attempts at Counterreformation and at a Catholic Reformation, at a time when the principality was once again led by a Catholic dynasty. In this context, new Catholic cultural (educational) models, supported by the Jesuits, were implemented in the existing Protestant and Orthodox context, in an often desperate attempt to reverse or at least balance the situation. In this respect, the Jesuit College of Cluj (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), established in 1581, remains a most memorable episode, whose consequences can still be seen today. By resorting to education and learning, the college was meant to influence and alter the surrounding Protestant and Orthodox world. In fact, it became an interesting facet of the multicultural, multiethnic and multiconfessional character of Transylvania, a miniature Europe inhabited by Latin, Germanic, Finno-Ugrian, Slavic peoples etc., by Byzantines, Catholics and Protestants, by rightful citizens and “tolerated” inhabitants, by masters and servants, by privileged categories and by groups merely “allowed to exist”. The troubled events of those years have left us with a model of cohabitation based on both cooperation and rivalry that truly deserves consideration. (shrink)

Transylvania is a multiethnic society that was part of the Hungarian legal space for centuries. Still, after the WWI, this territory became part of Romania, alongside with a significant number of Hungarian-speaking minority population. What happened with Hungarian as a legal language after the annexation of Transylvania to Romania? The article deals with the history and current status of Hungarian legal language in Romania, emphasizing the frequent contradictions between legal texts and realities, the importance of (...) political context, and fluctuations in the minority rights. The focus is on two problems: the language of legal education and the language of the court proceedings. There are arguments brought to prove the conditionality between these two at the intersection of history of legal education and minority rights. (shrink)

For a better understanding of the present situation in Romania it is necessary to go beyond the limited political approach, i.e., to seek the germs of contemporary conflicts in the history of that country — especially in the history of the Romanian Communist Party. We have to mink about the origins of Romanian communism in 1921, when the Socialist Left split into a strong and active radical minority and a “reformist” traditional Social-Democratic wing. The situation of the Left in (...) Romania was further complicated by an ethnic syncretism. Because of the incorporation of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and North Bukovinaand the subsequent national, social, economic, and cultural claims of the Hungarian, German, Jewish, Ukrainian, and Russian minorities, the ethnic problem became an obsession during the inter-war period. (shrink)

In Romania, the Baptist denomination includes, according to the 2002 census, about 130,000 believers, subsequent to the Pentecostal denomination. Areas having a large number of followers are Banat and some parts of Transylvania; besides these, there can be added large urban areas such as Bucharest, Timişoara, Constanţa, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, and Arad. In terms of ethnicity, Romanians represent the majority, followed by the Hungarians (Hungarian Baptist Convention). One of the smallest minorities in Romania, that is the Czechs, also provides a (...) number of believers, in the village of Sfînta Elena (Coronini Township, Caraş-Severin County) being the only Czech Baptist community in our country. Here, besides Catholics, a Baptist community is to be found, twice as small and of fairly recent origin. In the following, we intend to outline its image, based on field observations and interviews carried out between 2005-2010 (All of these have been materialised in our book, Istorie şi memorie în comunităţile cehilor din Clisura Dunării). We paid a particular interest in the neo-Protestant group, in order to identify means of building the image of another group with a different faith, considering the double minority, ethnic and religious status. Also, we tried to capture the ratio of forces between two different faith groups that were facing the same economic and social problems, problems that have caused the depopulation of villages, by massive migration of people to the Czech Republic. (shrink)

The author’s perspective in this text comes from the field of the political phenomenology. In his view, tolerance has preserved its actuality, both from a moral point of view and from a political one. After a preliminary discussion of Locke’s basic texts concern- ing tolerance, the author takes into consideration the recent thoughts of the contemporary Italian philoso- pher Norberto Bobbio, who understands the idea of tolerance as the basic principle of free and peaceful life. In addition, the author makes (...) applied commentaries at the Romanian context, pleading for the necessity of a responsible approach of the issue. (shrink)

Study on the thought and activities of a mystic philosopher of India.

(1994). Annex: The survey questionnaires. World Futures: Vol. 39, The Evolution of European Identity: Surveys of the Growing Edge A Report by the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 161-164.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Abby Minor 103 JUMP ROPE CHANT: A CURE FOR ALL KINDS OF STOMACH ACHES, ca. 2000 BCE–ca. 2000 CE Abby Minor Happy are those who stand in a field at night and hear the double rainbows land, or clap the gaps that RHYTHM makes, or shout to the beat of grasses; They are like trees planted by streams of water, which (...) yield their fruit in its season, & their leaps & their leaves & their feet do not wither, they leap up in the morning singing, in all that they do they chant, and jump, and are singing: “Blood root, hair pin, lupine, clover, watermints and cinnamon, a pencil, myrrh, poplar, juniper, copper water, whiskey, cotton root, snake root, savin, wire,  Clap your hands, all you peoples. —Psalm 47.1 104 Abby Minor wallflower, gunpowder, emeralds, myrtle, tonic of geranium, lace seeds, soap, bone stay, coltsfoot, catheters, quinine, a hoop bound with oil-silk, a hat pin, oak—” I chant a long time I chant from within a hollow place I chant all colors of cohosh Instantly as dawn clips green & white, I chant to dissolve separate parts I jump backwards and I chant So that you may bathe your feet in blood, it was in the Psalms, it’s what God does it might be a rain dance it will come to you like a beautiful cigar filled with fine leaves like the fine feet of a deer cleft in gold leaves Like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. I chant rosemary so assiduous I chant pennyroyal forever most poisonous I chant intransigence and double rainbows pop on the sidewalks of the cosmos, double Abby Minor 105 Dutch ropes spin like twin rivers, there I am planted like a tree by the water, like an outrider dropping fire into the ropes: I will kick up my heels seven times there will be a noise and the seed will fall out on the ground shouting, “Date palms, dancing, anise, trillium, turpentine, scissors, silphium, rum, cundums, pomegranate, pearlash, iron, foot baths, borax, birthwort, rue, wormwood, fern root, fig leaf, sneezing, a small ball of sheep’s wool, smart weed, brass, blackberries, goldbeaters, button hooks, hawthorn, womb veil, vinegar, saffron, glass—” If you try our hearts, RHYTHM, if you visit us by night; if I forget which is my left hand and which is your right— just let it be me; psalmist, you, a trace of blood. Me, muscle, 106 Abby Minor you, myrrh. Or you jumping, me rope. Me mirrorstep, you leave your dark prints on the light. Me ambush, you flood. Me bloodthirsty, you a smaller blood. You bloodthirsty, me myrrh. Me fortress, you a tent for the sun. Me splendor, you go on and on. Me hat pin, me flood. You poetry, me a clapping tree, or me poetry and you nothing at all. I say to RHYTHM, “You are my Rhythm, I have no song apart from you and I could never tell just where the sole leaves the sidewalk and turns into the smallest lit pause popped, suspended above shoe shadow; I could never say whether I’m the jumper picking up her knees or the turner planted so still save for her hands— and what pilots her hands, pilot, if not you, if not her hands? If not the offbeat, the bows of light we pattern, Rhythm which is both the rivet and what’s held: like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail Abby Minor 107 RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Now I chant the bitter melon fruit who lights up darkness and my feet do not grow weary writing RHYTHM on the sidewalk lighting incense in the bathtub filled with gin in which I lay chanting like the singers in front, like the musicians last, like the girls between them playing tambourines: Rhythm make a riot Rhythm eat a bee Rhythm use a chicken feather & make a joyful noise Praise Rhythm with mint & astringents with spearmints & syringes with pipes, pen handles, mercury... (shrink)

In 1942, American Nobel Prize-winning physicist Arthur Compton pointed out that, “Because in this field of cosmic ray studies certain unique advantages are given by their geographical position, this field of physics has been especially emphasized in South America.” This paper seeks to interrogate the making of Latin America's uniqueness with respect to cosmic-ray research through an analysis that considers Compton's geographical argument, but also goes beyond it, referring to the interactions of nature, knowledge, practices, scientific communities, and diplomacy. To (...) begin with, it highlights the place-based strategies and practices associated with cosmic-ray research. Once research in the field at different altitudes demonstrated that cosmic rays traveled from outer space to the Earth surface, their nature was scrutinized by expeditions that covered broad vertical and horizontal expanses. The study of cosmic rays in Latin America displayed the mobilization of that strategy, which reinforced the reliability of certain sites located at high altitudes and close to the geomagnetic equator in projected investigations. Moreover, such analysis of cosmic rays involved research practices in the field, the emergence of (local, regional, or international) research traditions, and the creation of spaces of knowledge at different scales. By centering on the interaction of knowledge and place, this paper shows that an exploration of the “up-and-down journeys” of cosmic-ray research in Latin America expands our understanding of the geographies and practices of 20th-century physics. (shrink)

Karen Barad develops a view she calls ‘posthumanism,’ or ‘agential realism,’ where the human is reconfigured away from the central place of explanation, interpretation, intelligibility, and objectivity to make room for the epistemic importance of other material agents. Barad is not alone in this kind of endeavor, but her posthumanism offers a unique epistemological position. Her aim is to take a performative rather than a representationalist approach to analyzing ‘socialnatural’ practices and challenge methodological assumptions that may go unnoticed in some (...) disciplinary fields. Yet for all the good of the challenge, Barad must support it with sound epistemological theorizing, theorizing that would apply to any methodology, whether that be sociological, historical, anthropological, or philosophical. Thus, where one might critique Barad on her assessments of sociological, historical, or anthropological incorporations of humans and the nonhuman, I critique Barad’s epistemology on its sense of objectivity and dismissal of the centrality of the human. I argue that Barad’s epistemology must retain a particular form of humanism, a humanism that stakes human subjectivity as the locus of rationality and objectivity, without which it creates intractable problems. To recuperate Barad’s challenge to contest assumptive distinctions while avoiding her epistemological problems, I offer some parting reflections. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper deals with two cases of acquisition and construction of Van de Graaff accelerators in 1950s Latin America, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of São Paulo, respectively. A comparative approach allows us to appreciate the significance of this particular technology within scientific, cultural, commercial, and political processes. Van de Graaff accelerators appeared as an affordable technology to engage in experimental nuclear physics and to be part of the atomic age. The circumstances that motivated (...) physics communities in Brazil and Mexico to choose this specific technology took shape in close interactions with US institutions and scientists. These inter-American alliances involved precisely the main companies and groups that competed for the market of this technology around the world. These accelerators also intertwined with the building of campuses for two major Latin American universities, occupying then a singular place (physically and symbolically) within their execution. This paper engages with comparison for the common goal of going beyond frameworks and methodologies tied to the nation, while integrating the study of connections and interactions, as well as the interplay of multiple scales. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the semantics of distributivity, grammatical number, and cardinality predicates. I argue that constructions involving so-called ‘dependent plurals’, i.e. plurals lacking cardinality predicates occurring in the scope of certain quantificational items such as all and most, pose a challenge to familiar semantic frameworks that distinguish between two sources of multiplicity: mereological plurality and distributive quantification. I argue that dependent plural readings should be analysed as distinct both from cumulative readings and distributive readings, in the classical sense. I (...) demonstrate how this can be accomplished in a semantic framework where expressions are evaluated relative to sets of assignments, or plural info states Proceedings of the 7th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1990, in Dekker and Stokhof Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1994, Some aspects of the Internal Structure of Discourse. The Dynamics of Nominal Anaphora. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1996). The specific formal implementation is based on a modified version of Brasoveanu’s :129–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-008-9035-0, 2008) Plural Compositional DRT. In this framework we are able to distinguish between two types of distributivity: weak distributivity across the assignments in a single plural info state and strong distributivity across multiple info states. I argue that both of these types of distributivity play a role in the semantics of natural language, accounting for the contrasting properties of ‘singular quantifiers’, such as each and every, and ‘plural quantifiers’, such as all and most. The contrasting properties of bare plurals and plurals involving cardinality modifiers are analysed in terms of the distinction between state-level and assignment-level plurality. (shrink)

Henry Nelson Wieman’s most distinctive philosophical contributions are his identification of creative interchange as the ultimate process in human experience through which people and their institutions are able to create, sustain, improve, and cor­rect their value perspectives and, equally important, his description of creative inter­change in psychological, sociological, histor­ical, religious, and institutional contexts as subject inquiry and the experimental test of consequences. This massive collection, thirty-three orig­inal essays with an appendix and index, rep­resents the first formal attempt to consider fully (...) the interdisciplinary implications of creative interchange. Following an introduc­tion, the book is structured into six sections, beginning with historical studies on the de­velopment of Wieman’s philosophy of creativity. With this information as a base the subsequent five sections treat: _ _his metaphysics and theory of knowledge; _ _his the­ory of value; _ _creative interchange in the context of rhetoric and literary criticism; _ _creative interchange as a guide for social phi­losophy; and creative interchange as re­lated to current philosophic trends. The essayists include prominent philosophers, such as Charles Hartshorne, Lewis E._ _Hahn, and S. Morris Eames, as well as emerging scholars who have responded to Wieman’s conception of creative interchange. (shrink)

There is a tendency, a bad tendency, to make epistemic agency the central focus of epistemology. In brief, epistemologists have traditionally elevated epistemic agency as the crucial issue to be addressed, and ask all other epistemological questions in light of that issue. This is not surprising given the Cartesian influence on epistemology, but I argue that epistemic agency should not always be the central focus of epistemology. There are times when giving central place to epistemic agency gets in the way (...) of good epistemology. In this paper, I show how one approach to a communitarian epistemology falters precisely because of the primacy given to epistemic agency. Specifically, I take a close look at Lynn Hankinson Nelson?s notion of epistemological communities in terms of epistemic agency and analyze both its merits and its shortcomings. This is an important analysis for general consideration given the trend in non-traditional epistemologies to look towards social complexes as the real seats of knowledge. But this is also important because my analysis pushes one to consider an alternative framing concept for epistemology?that of epistemic practises instead of epistemic agency. (shrink)