Are mechanisms for social attention influenced by culture? Evidence that social attention is triggered automatically by bottom-up gaze cues and is uninfluenced by top-down verbal instructions may suggest it operates in the same way everywhere. Yet considerations from evolutionary and cultural psychology suggest that specific aspects of one's cultural background may have consequence for the way mechanisms for social attention develop and operate. In more interdependent cultures, the scope of social attention may be broader, focusing on more individuals and relations (...) between those individuals. We administered a multi-gaze cueing task requiring participants to fixate a foreground face flanked by background faces and measured shifts in attention using eye tracking. For European Americans, gaze cueing did not depend on the direction of background gaze cues, suggesting foreground gaze alone drives automatic attention shifting; for East Asians, cueing patterns differed depending on whether the foreground cue matched or mismatched background cues, suggesting foreground and background gaze information were integrated. These results demonstrate that cultural background influences the social attention system by shifting it into a narrow or broad mode of operation and, importantly, provides evidence challenging the assumption that mechanisms underlying automatic social attention are necessarily rigid and impenetrable to culture. (shrink)

Examining the interconnections between genes and culture is crucial for a more complete understanding of psychological processes. Genetic predispositions may predict different outcomes depending on one's cultural context, and culture may predict different outcomes depending on genetic predispositions - that is, genes and culture interact. Less is understood, however, about how genes and culture interact, or the psychological mechanisms through which gene–culture interactions occur. In this Element, Joni Y. Sasaki and Heewon Kwon review key findings and theories in gene–culture (...) interaction research. They then go on to discuss current issues and future directions in gene–culture research that may illuminate the path toward an explanatory framework. (shrink)

What happened to the feminist movement of the optimistic 1970s during the 1980s? Was it stifled by the political and economic changes associated with Thatcherism, or did it help bring those changes about? Will the 1990s see a new generation of feminists who will not tolerate the conditions under which their mothers work and live? Joni Lovenduski and Vicky Randall trace the movement's accomplishments and defeats over four successive Conservative governments. They argue that its development can only be understood (...) in the context of a rapidly changing social and economic environment and that the movement's deradicalization and apparent decline have in fact been accompanied by a greater involvement with state agencies and the growing presence of feminists in mainstream institutions. The central section examines five key areas for feminist politics: political representation and citizenship, equal employment opportunities, reproductive rights and health, motherhood and childcare, and male violence. For all of these it explores both the main preoccupations of feminist theory and important grass-roots developments. It concludes that a feminist-influenced British Women's Movement is a changed but unmistakably significant political force in the 1990s. (shrink)

One of the prestige of young people’s identity today is through fashion. Fashion has even become a “religion” that binds the identity of the individual who wears it. The Sneaker, a form of fashion, also has a big role; even now, it has become a commodity and prestige with a fetish nuance. Therefore, this study aims to identify how the sneaker fetish becomes a space for simulating the lives of young people in Indonesia. Furthermore, this study also examines the problem (...) of the representation of youth-lifestyle simulations in Indonesia. This research uses a qualitative case study approach to play on Jean Baudrillard’s approach to simulacra and hyperreality, which also discusses David Chaney’s approach to fashion. Data collection was obtained from audience studies by examining tagging on social media, Instagram, from July 2022 to October 2022. The results of the study show that the sneaker trend does not only act as a complement to appearances, more than that, but it can also display the personal identity of the wearer. A sneaker community also facilitates the lifestyle of young people towards sneakers. Finally, the community shifted the concept of young people towards sneaker consumption to be more consumptive than before. On the other hand, young people do not realize that what they have done is a hyperreality that tries to identify itself with the best possible image and continues to shape it through massive consumption activities. This is where the sneaker concept shifts from a “community” to a “commodity”. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the possibilities and challenges of Fair Trade certification as a movement seeking to improve the well-being of small-scale coffee growers and coffee laborers in the global South. Six months of fieldwork was conducted in 2005–2006 to study the roles of a wide range of farmers, laborers, cooperative administrators, and export companies in Fair Trade coffee production and trade in Nicaragua. The results of our evaluation of the ability of Fair Trade to meet its objectives indicate that Fair (...) Trade’s opportunities to provide a significant price premium for participating farmers largely depend on world coffee prices in mainstream markets. While Fair Trade has promoted premiums for social development for participating producers and strengthened the institutional capacities of the cooperatives involved, its ability to enhance significantly the working conditions of hired coffee laborers remains limited. (shrink)

In this paper, I will provide a phenomenological analysis of somatic obsessions at times present in obsessive–compulsive disorder. I will compare two different types of bodily obsessions, which have a different neurological-physiological underpinning: anguishing awareness of one’s own heartbeat and of one’s own breathing. In addition, I will contrast these two with how one experiences one’s own liver. I will use the concepts "tactility obsessions” and "motility obsessions”, which I have coined for the purpose of this comparison. In other words, (...) these are obsessions concerning the felt sense of one’s autonomous organs and obsessions concerning one’s ability to voluntarily move. Ultimately, I claim that the core lived experience in somatic obsessive–compulsive disorder should not only be understood as having to do with intruding and "distorted thoughts” concerning bodily processes, but could also be understood as having to do with a felt sense of our organs interrupting and intruding our daily lives. (shrink)

This text studies the corporeality of attentive reading. It relies and builds upon philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s suggestion that there is, each time, arecitative voicewithin the heart of our advancement through a textual body. This text examines the intriguing figure of recitative voice by paying attention to two bodily variations of reading: reading aloud and reading silently. Nancy’s recitative voice, as a sonorous, resonant, oral, buccal and vocal notion, can help us in explicating how our bodies condition our experiences of reading, (...) yet ultimately he remains rather implicit on how we advance through textual bodies. This short text argues that we can explicate the bodily weight implicit to reading, if we interpreted it as a recitative act. When we read aloud, our experience of a text consists of an advancement of our conjoined gaze and voice through the letters, words and sentences making up our text; when we read silently, our closed and silent mouth is still conjoined with our advancing gaze, advancing as desirous for speech and with words already grasped, even when no words are folded in (or with) exhaled warm air. (shrink)

The article addresses the concepts of nation and nationalism in Roger Scruton's political thought. It is divided into two parts: 1) the critical presentation of the classical arguments about nation and nationalism, in authors such as Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, David Miller, Anthony D. Smith and Yoram Hazony; 2) an analysis of Scruton's arguments about the nation and nationalism. Scruton opposes the arguments of Anderson, Gellner, and Hobsbawm, who understood the nation as an artificial construct. In the article, (...) Scruton's conservative idea is defended, especially, highlighting concepts such as: Nation-State and Nation, local and national loyalties, which correspond to the protection of small platoons, and association and civil society are also fundamental. The foundation of conservatism in Scruton rests on the concept of the nation-state, political sovereignty, and loyalty, as well as on the interpretation of Burkean thought of the departed, the living and the unborn. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to Creative Writing ContributionsAlexis Pauline Gumbs, Akasha Gloria Hull, Cheryl Clarke, doris diosa davenport, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Asha French, Sharon Bridgforth, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Alexis De Veaux, and Sokari Ekinewhen i first began to dream of creative writing contributions for this special issue of Feminist Studies celebrating the fortieth anniversaries of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and All the Women (...) Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies, I imagined a wealth of examples of the world and the work made possible by these two groundbreaking anthologies. I wondered what their editors and contributors were writing now. I wondered about the work of their students and people like me: those of us who understand everything we write as indebted to the path-making, silence-clearing, generative, and bodacious work of the participants in the miracles that are This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave.But today as I reread the contributions that actually emerged from this process, I realize that my dream was too small. I imagined writing that would provide evidence of the ongoing impact made by these two anthologies. Instead, the creative writing in this special issue offers something more crucial and beautiful than I had imagined. These works are not mere evidence of a transformed world; these works are continuing to transform the world in urgent and visionary ways. As repeated again and again by participants in the 2022 celebration for the fortieth anniversary celebration of This Bridge Called My Back, the work that inspired these anthologies is not over. The writings featured in this issue not only show [End Page 198] how this work continues, but they feed, nurture, and provoke us as we honor our responsibility to transform this world.For example, when Akasha Gloria Hull, coeditor of But Some of Us Are Brave, shares her daily early morning meditative writing in "Writing and Rebirth: A Set of Journal Poems," we remember not only her fundamental work excavating the daily lives of Black women writers from the nineteenth century—most notably in Give Us Each Day, her edited book based on the diaries of poet Alice Dunbar Nelson—but also our own imperative. Hull's reflections on health challenges, interpersonal conflict, resurrection, collaboration, and writing itself remind us that our feminist praxis is impactful because of its dailyness. Those of us who wake up tomorrow will need to ask the same critical questions the editors of But Some of Us Are Brave asked of the fields of Black studies and women's studies. We will find surprises and repetitions in the days we meet, and then we will have to do it again.When we read two new prose poems by Cheryl Clarke, an original contributor to This Bridge Called My Back, we have an opportunity to time travel. In "Living as a Lesbian in the Archive of Style," we venture into a critical engagement with the term "hardcore lesbian," displacing the desires of the person who needs to classify others using that term with those of someone who has been hailed by it. Clarke's poem is a reminder that as we work in literary traditions and fields of study made possible by the revolutionary identity politics of an earlier era, we are still responsible for centering the experiences of those most impacted by our fluent and fluid naming practices. In "History," Clarke offers us a timely Black lesbian feminist lens on many iterations of responding to police violence, centering the perspective of a lesbian, her lover, and her lover's husband.The poem "On Being an hbcu Graduate, Teacher, Professor-Scholar at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL, in May 2015" by doris diosa davenport—an original contributor to But Some of Us Are Brave—highlights the intimacy, hilarity, and poignancy of the daily work of intergenerational critical and creative praxis. In particular, she considers the context of institutions and regions that are sometimes excluded from the imaginary of how and where feminist work happens. davenport transmits the lessons and energy gained through her practice of thinking and gathering otherwise... (shrink)

Behaving consistently across situations is fundamental to a person’s authenticity in Western societies. This can pose a problem for biculturals who often frame switch, or adapt their behavior across cultural contexts, as a way of maintaining fit with each of their cultures. In particular, the behavioral inconsistency entailed in frame switching may undermine biculturals’ sense of authenticity, as well as Westerners’ impressions of biculturals’ authenticity. Study 1 had a diverse sample of biculturals (N = 127) living in the US and (...) Canada describe an episode of frame switching (vs. no switching control vs. neutral control) and report on their state authenticity during the episode. Results showed that biculturals recalled feeling less authentic during an instance of frame switching compared to no switching control and neutral control. Study 2 had mainstream Canadians (White and of American, Canadian, or Western European cultural heritage, N = 97) read a hypothetical vignette, from a third-person perspective, about a bicultural who frame switches (vs. no switching control vs. neutral control) and provide their impressions of the bicultural’s authenticity and multiple other desirable traits. Participants rated the bicultural as less authentic when he frame switched compared to no switching control and neutral control, and rated him as less likeable, trustworthy, and warm (but not competent) as downstream consequences of seeing him as less authentic. These results demonstrate that frame switching can come at a cost to authenticity, both in terms of how biculturals see themselves and are seen by others, at least in Western societies. These findings highlight that the way biculturals negotiate their cultures affects them psychologically and socially. In the context of cultural fit, the active process of establishing and maintaining fit with one’s cultures can have unforeseen consequences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:My StoryDawn Ruggeroli–CollinsMy story starts on October 17, 1981. I was 17–years–old and was riding home from a night with friends at the Roundup Rodeo in Simonton, Texas. The girl who was driving was a friend of a friend, so unfortunately I did [End Page E5] not know her well enough to realize that she was drunk. I have very little recollection of the accident, nor of the few (...) days that followed. However, I do recall being very aware that I was paralyzed.For some reason, I had for the previous few years been reading books by women who had spinal cord injuries as a result of some type of accident. I read Joni Eareckson’s book “Joni” and “The Other Side of the Mountain” about Jill Kinmont, and saw the movies about both women. Additionally, my mother bought me “Karen,” and “With Love, from Karen” the story of Karen Killalea, who has cerebral palsy. It seemed to me that reading these books prepared me for dealing with my disability in a positive way rather than “woe is me.”I’m actually one of the luckiest people you’ll ever know! While I have a C–4/C–5 SCI, it is pretty incomplete and as a result I’m pretty mobile. I wear an ankle–foot orthotic (AFO) on my right foot and use a cane. I do have Brown–Séquard syndrome, with better sensation on my right side and better function on the left. So, I was right–handed the first 17 years of my life and I’m now a leftie.A couple of days after my accident, while I was still in the intensive care unit (ICU), one of the nurses felt that it was important for me to realize that I would probably be paralyzed for the rest of my life; never to walk again. So she took it upon herself to deliver this message personally. Well, I wasn’t having any of that! I yelled and screamed and threw the biggest tantrum that one can throw while one’s head is clamped down by Gardner–Wells tongs. Given how well I have recovered, I have often thought how it would be to find Judy, walk up to her, and ask if she remembers me.My dad has often told me that he thinks I went through the grieving process pretty quickly after my accident. It wasn’t always easy, and I did have my down moments, but for the most part I think he’s right. I’ve always been a positive person and that helped get me through this and many other trying times in my life. I think at the time I also had a fear that no one would want to be around me if I was stuck in a wheelchair and was a Debbie Downer. I was only 17 after all.When I went away to college I was still mainly using a wheelchair. When I told a friend that I didn’t want to be in a dorm with all of the disabled students, she laughed and asked me why I didn’t want to be with “my people.” Aside from playing some wheelchair basketball, I had never really hung out with other people with disabilities. I was briefly involved with a disabled support type of group but many of them had really negative attitudes. I didn’t stick around for very long after I learned that one of the guys said to one of the women that she would be really attractive if it weren’t for “that wheelchair.” This coming someone in a wheelchair himself!During my second year at Michigan State I had my first realization that people don’t just see me as someone with a disability. A friend was talking with an acquaintance from the other side of our dorm and she mentioned me. The acquaintance said “oh, Dawn in the wheelchair?” and her response was “yeah, I guess she is in a wheelchair.” When she relayed this conversation to me later I was really moved that she didn’t see me as someone in a wheelchair first... (shrink)

Einstein, in his “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”, gave a physical (operational) meaning to “time” of a remote event in describing “motion” by introducing the concept of “synchronous stationary clocks located at different places”. But with regard to “place” in describing motion, he assumed without analysis the concept of a system of co-ordinates.In the present paper, we propose a way of giving physical (operational) meaning to the concepts of “place” and “co-ordinate system”, and show how the observer can define both the (...) place and time of a remote event. Following Einstein, we consider another system “in uniform motion of translation relatively to the former”. Without assuming “the properties of homogeneity which we attribute to space and time”, we show that the definitions of space and time in the two systems are linearly related. We deduce some novel consequences of our approach regarding faster-than-light observers and particles, “one-way” and “two-way” velocities of light, symmetry, the “group property” of inertial reference frames, length contraction and time dilatation, and the “twin paradox”. Finally, we point out a flaw in Einstein’s argument in the “Electrodynamical Part” of his paper and show that the Lorentz force formula and Einstein’s formula for transformation of field quantities are mutually consistent. We show that for faster-than-light bodies, a simple modification of Planck’s formula for mass suffices. (Except for the reference to Planck’s formula, we restrict ourselves to Physics of 1905.). (shrink)

On religious and spiritual life as depicted in Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Hindu mythological text.

A series of experiments investigated the effect of speakers’ language, accent, and race on children’s social preferences. When presented with photographs and voice recordings of novel children, 5-year-old children chose to be friends with native speakers of their native language rather than foreign-language or foreign-accented speakers. These preferences were not exclusively due to the intelligibility of the speech, as children found the accented speech to be comprehensible, and did not make social distinctions between foreign-accented and foreign-language speakers. Finally, children chose (...) same-race children as friends when the target children were silent, but they chose other-race children with a native accent when accent was pitted against race. A control experiment provided evidence that children’s privileging of accent over race was not due to the relative familiarity of each dimension. The results, discussed in an evolutionary framework, suggest that children preferentially evaluate others along dimensions that distinguished social groups in prehistoric human societies. (shrink)

The starting point of my study is Kant’s remark to the effect that Garve in his treatise on the connection between morality and politics presents arguments in defence of unjust principles. Recognition of these principles is, according to Kant, an inadvisable concession to those who are inclined to abuse it. I interpret this judgement by making a detailed comparison of the texts of the two treatises. I demonstrate that Garve’s work is an eclectic attempt to combine in one concept the (...) lessons of historical experience with the ideas drawn from British empiricism and German rationalism. These ideas were criticised by Kant in his “critical” period. There is a consensus among researchers that Garve condoned the expansionist policy of Frederick II of Prussia, totally denied that legality in international relations was possible and in general deserved the reputation of an conservative. From that point of view the key values for Garve were the security and well-being of the state. I offer an alternative interpretation of Garve’s position because I believe that the value of political stability plays an important role in it. Such an interpretation makes it possible to treat Garve’s narrative as it was assessed by Kant, i.e. as a concession to the common principles of political practice as a result of a failure to find the guiding theory. My study has established that the role of Garve’s work in the writing of Kant’s treatise Toward Perpetual Peace was more significant than Kant’s own words suggest. Besides, I show that it was under Garve’s influence that Kant turned to the problem of excessive complexity of the principles involved in the search for concrete political decisions. Garve obviously laments this complexity and yet makes these principles still more complex. Kant offers a simpler solution of the problem on the basis of his theory of morals and right. (shrink)

Peirceana provides a forum for the best current work on Peirce worldwide. Besides monographs, the series will publish thematically unified anthologies and edited volumes with a defined topical focus and untranslated English selections of Peirce's writings.

Volume 6 of this landmark edition contains 66 writings mainly from the unsettled period in Peirce’s life just after he moved from New York to Milford, Pennsylvania, followed shortly afterward by the death of his mother. The writings in this volume reveal Peirce’s powerful mind probing into diverse issues, looking for an underlying unity, but, perhaps, also looking for direction.

Exploration of Alfred North Whitehead's influence on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of nature.

A brief presentation of the major conclusions contained in the recently published monograph entitled "The Ascent to Law: Searches and Solutions," written over a period of many years. Chapter headings are: The law - an objective reality. The dogma of the law. The drama of scholarship. Searching. "The entire" substance of the law. Juridical constructs. The logic of laws. The secret of the law. Law - the highest purpose. Law in the life and fate of mankind.