This fresh portrait of Varenius presents a young German scholar, whose books on Japan, the first one from a European perspective, and on General Geography were written and published in Amsterdam and led to establishing geography as a science.

Feminist theorist and philosopher Donna Haraway has substantially impacted thought on science, cyberculture, the environment, animals, and social relations. This long-overdue volume explores her influence on feminist theory and philosophy, paying particular attention to her more recent work on companion species, rather than her "Manifesto for Cyborgs." Margret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick argue that the ongoing fascination with, and re-production of, the cyborg has overshadowed Haraway's extensive body of work in ways that run counter to her own transdisciplinary practices. (...) Sparked by their own personal "adventures" with Haraway's work, the authors offer readings of her texts framed by a series of theoretical and political perspectives: feminist materialism, standpoint epistemology, radical democratic theory, queer theory, and even science fiction. They situate Haraway's critical storytelling and "risky reading" practices as forms of feminist methodology and recognize her passionate engagement with "naturecultures" as the theoretical core driving her work. Chapters situate Haraway as critic, theorist, biologist, feminist, historian, and humorist, exploring the full range of her identities and reflecting her commitment to embodying all of these modes simultaneously. (shrink)

More than sixty-five black-and-white photographs as well as explanations on the aesthetic rationale and techniques used in order to produce these artworks, are featured in a representative collection of the author's thirty-eight years of ...

Now that pornography is on the Internet, its political and social functions have changed. So contends Margret Grebowicz in this imperative philosophical analysis of Internet porn. The production and consumption of Internet porn, in her account, are a symptom of the obsession with self-exposure in today's social networking media, which is, in turn, a symptom of the modern democratic construction of the governable subject as both transparent and communicative. In this first feminist critique to privilege the effects of pornography's (...) Internet distribution rather than what it depicts, Grebowicz examines porn-sharing communities and the politics of putting women's sexual pleasure on display as part of the larger democratic project. Arguing against this project, she shows that sexual pleasure is not a human right. Unlikely convergences between thinkers like Catherine MacKinnon, Jean Baudrillard, Judith Butler, and Jean-François Lyotard allow her to formulate a theory of the relationships between sex, speech, and power that stands as an alternative to such cyber-libertarian mottos as "freedom of speech" and "sexual freedom.". (shrink)

This article investigates the intersections of secrecy/interiority, the state, and speech/ expression, and their implications for the rights of women. I propose a critique of commercial pornography that reanimates MacKinnon's claim that pornography and American democracy are in a relationship of mutual reinforcement, and incorporates poststructuralist (Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Butler) commitments to secrecy and unintelligibility, as well as their role in the production of pleasure.

At the end of his attack on my use of the psychoanalytic model for the interpretation of literature, Heller raises the question concerning what the task of the literary critic is or ought to be. His own "sketch of the Kleistean theme's historical ancestry and its later development," he says, seeks to deepen and enrich the reader's appreciation of Kleist's literary art, the artistry of his phrasing, the persuasiveness of his incidents, the conclusiveness of his examples." By implication he suggests (...) that my method does not have this end—that is, appreciation—for its goal. In this he is partially right. "Appreciation" in Heller's sense is not as directly a goal for me. But does Heller's method of intellectual history and literary relation meet his own criteria of deepening and enriching the reader's appreciation of Kleist? In his capsule treatment of Great Thinkers of the Western World from Plato to Marx, we learn that many writers besides Kleist treated Kleist's theme of man's fall from unconscious grace. What exactly does this tell us about Kleist's treatment of it? How does it deepen the reader's appreciation of Kleist's literary art, the artistry of his phrasing, the persuasiveness of his incidents? It doesn't. It isn't even about Kleist. Although Heller tells us that it is the "thought" and "imagery" which "make for the great distinction of the essay" , his evidence for this consists, in the case of the former, in his tracing the history of the essay's thought and, in the case of the latter, in his statements that Kleist's use of the puppet as the exemplar of the unselfconscious graceful being is "unusual" and "novel" and that his bear story, though it may lack "in immediate plausibility," "gains in making Kleist's point" and is "a memorable exemplar" of the "art of grotesque inventions that are capable of floating for quite a while above and between the comic and the serious before landing with scintillating effect in one domain or the other" . Margret Schaefer is a lecturer in the department of psychiatry at Northwestern University Medical School. She responds here to Erich Heller's "The Dismantling of a Marionette Theater; or, Psychology and the Misinterpretation of Literature" , in which he discussed her article, "Kleist's 'About the Puppet Theater,". (shrink)

Synthetic biology" is the label of a new technoscientific field with many different facets and agendas. One common aim is to "create life", primarily by using engineering principles to design and modify biological systems for human use. In a wider context, the topic has become one of the big cases in the legitimization processes associated with the political agenda to solve global problems with the aid of (bio-)technological innovation. Conceptual-level and meta-level analyses are needed: we should sort out conceptual ambiguities (...) to agree on what we talk about, and we need to spell out agendas to see the disagreements clearly. The book is based on the interdisciplinary summer school "Analyzing the societal dimensions of synthetic biology", which took place in Berlin in September 2014. The contributions address controversial discussions around the philosophical examination, public perception, moral evaluation and governance of synthetic biology. (shrink)

The images, along with supporting commentary by Anna Hesse and the contributing editors, explore the economic, cultural, and social life of the community, detailing Hermann's traditional German practices as well as the influences of developing American technologies. The contributors conclude that the Kemper photographs provide new evidence pertinent to the understanding of how immigrant groups preserved their culture and new data for reexamining the immigrant experience in the United States.

Synthetic biology is a dynamic, young, ambitious, attractive, and heterogeneous scientific discipline. It is constantly developing and changing, which makes societal evaluation of this emerging new science a challenging task, prone to misunderstandings. Synthetic biology is difficult to capture, and confusion arises not only regarding which part of synthetic biology the discussion is about, but also with respect to the underlying concepts in use. This book offers a useful toolbox to approach this complex and fragmented field. It provides a biological (...) access to the discussion using a 'layer' model that describes the connectivity of synthetic or semisynthetic organisms and cells to the realm of natural organisms derived by evolution. Instead of directly reviewing the field as a whole, firstly our book addresses the characteristic features of synthetic biology that are relevant to the societal discussion. Some of these features apply only to parts of synthetic biology, whereas others are relevant to synthetic biology as a whole. In the next step, these new features are evaluated with respect to the different areas of synthetic biology. Do we have the right words and categories to talk about these new features? In the third step, traditional concepts like "life" and "artificiality" are scrutinized with regard to their discriminatory power. This approach may help to differentiate the discussion on synthetic biology. Lastly our refined view is utilized for societal evaluation. We have investigated the public views and attitudes to synthetic biology. It also includes the analysis of ethical, risk and legal questions, posed by present and future practices of synthetic biology. This book contains the results of an interdisciplinary research project and presents the authors' main findings and recommendations. They are addressed to science, industry, politics and the general public interested in this upcoming field of biotechnology. (shrink)

Why “do” philosophy, if not to contribute to social consciousness , to develop ideas for change, to articulate the desperations of the present and the possibilities of futures which will help people, however loosely we define “people”? This is one of the most popular objections to philosophy: that it is not practical, and therefore not really politically useful. And in today’s philosophical arena, this argument is directed specifically against postmodern philosophies. However, there is another sense of the word “postmodern,” which (...) we often forget when talking about postmodernism. Lyotard wants us to think about that which resists institutionalization, homogenization, academic taxonomies, economies, and genealogies. The postmodern is the moment of ideological instability and confusion, of radical undermining of foundations and transgressing of boundaries. It is just another name for thought. In this essay, I attempt to describe a sort of postmodern praxis in terms of the Lyotardian notion of thought, discussing the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Hardt and Negri, and June Jordan. (shrink)

The Kennedy Institute of Ethics is grateful for the vision, guidance, and dedication on behalf of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal by Robert M. Veatch, PhD, its senior editor and senior research scholar at the KIE. For over twenty years, Bob has steered the journal along its path of success, and its partnership with the Johns Hopkins University Press, to arrive at the place it holds today—truly a "scholarly forum for diverse views on major issues in bioethics." Bob has (...) retired from the editorship effective January 2011 (though thankfully not from the KIE!).We also wish to express our appreciation to Carol M. Spicer, PhD, the journal's editor and hands-on manager of KIEJ. Carol received her doctorate in .. (shrink)

Natural human behavior is segmented into action units, functionally related groups of movements with durations of a few seconds. This phenomenon can also be found in nonhuman primates and other mammals. In humans, a similar segmentation can be found in planning, preparatory behavior, perception, and speech. Temporal segmentation may be related to the functioning of short-term memory. Segmentation may thus be a central feature of neuronal integration. Segment length was hitherto thought to be determined by either capacity constraints or temporal (...) factors. Instead we show that segment length depends on the interplay between capacity and temporal factors. (shrink)

_The National Park to Come_ examines the sense of "the national" that our national parks construct and the kind of citizen they produce in the process. Who is the visitor in these spaces? Who is the national and who the foreigner? To whose children is the ostensibly unpeopled wilderness of the future owed? At what cost, and to whom? Grebowicz explores how such politicized modes of being-in-nature are maintained on the emotional level, shaping our basic sense of coherence, futurity, collectivity, (...) and having a life. Wilderness-as-spectacle, she argues, functions as a form of social relation even as we imagine the true experience of nature to be solitary and apolitical. The book's most pressing concern is the relationship between the foreigner and the future in the democratization of wilderness. For the questions explored here, contends Grebowicz, are precisely those that will shape the future of our entire park system. (shrink)

Two Ozark Rivers has become a perennial favorite among canoeists, hikers, and other outdoor enthusiasts. Now this remarkable portrait of the Current and the Jacks Fork Rivers, granted national-park status in 1964 as the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, is available for the first time in paperback. Oliver Schuchard's dramatic visual presentation and Steve Kohler's evocative description vividly interpret this unique region, where beauty, recreation, and relaxation are delightfully combined.

If feminists argue for the irreducibility of the social dimensions of science, then they ought to embrace the idea that feminist and non-feminist scientists are not in collaboration, but in fact defend different interests. Instead, however, contemporary feminist science studies literature argues that feminist research improves particular, existing scientific enterprises, both epistemically (truer claims) and politically (more democratic methodologies and applications). I argue that the concepts of empirical success and democracy at work in this literature from Longino (1994) and Harding (...) (1996), to Longino (2002), Gilbert and Rader (2001), and Keller (2001) are not sufficiently critical, and fail to do justice to the truly revolutionary work done by feminist scientists. I offer the beginnings of an epistemology of dissensus (as opposed to consensus), using the work of Haraway (1978), Lyotard (1984), and Ziarek (2001). How would such an epistemology relate to feminist discussions of the possibility of democratic, responsible knowledge? (shrink)

Examines Lyotard’s writings in light of contemporary feminist theory.

_The National Park to Come_ examines the sense of "the national" that our national parks construct and the kind of citizen they produce in the process. Who is the visitor in these spaces? Who is the national and who the foreigner? To whose children is the ostensibly unpeopled wilderness of the future owed? At what cost, and to whom? Grebowicz explores how such politicized modes of being-in-nature are maintained on the emotional level, shaping our basic sense of coherence, futurity, collectivity, (...) and having a life. Wilderness-as-spectacle, she argues, functions as a form of social relation even as we imagine the true experience of nature to be solitary and apolitical. The book's most pressing concern is the relationship between the foreigner and the future in the democratization of wilderness. For the questions explored here, contends Grebowicz, are precisely those that will shape the future of our entire park system. (shrink)

This article comprises a dialogue between two historians who have attempted, individually, to narrate the life of Lord George Gordon (1751 – 93), the Scottish prophet, revolutionary, and convert to Judaism. For modern cultural historians, Gordon's peregrinations between identities offer a kaleidoscopic view of Britain in the overlooked but crucial interstice between the upheavals of 1776 and 1789. Yet the partial nature of the evidence, the long omission of Gordon from the historiography of eighteenth-century Britain, and the complex, often furtive (...) nature of Gordon's activism create multiple ambiguities in his story. These ambiguities are compounded here by the authors' differing approaches. Marsha Keith Schuchard argues for a Gordon shaped by Scottish origins; Dominic Green, for a Gordon responding to English opportunities. They disagree over the likely date of Gordon's conversion to Judaism and, crucially, over whether he was a religious atavist or a Romantic pioneer. This dialogue is meant to illustrate the utility of a scholarship that acknowledges fuzziness rather than attempting to overclarify it. The article is also meant to show, however, that on the public stage fuzziness can be less benign: Gordon was a religious politician, who reworked his complexities and confusions into a violent, uncompromising critique of eighteenth-century British social order. (shrink)

Both Husserl and Popper share the sentiment that philosophy should model itself after something called "science," despite their differing attitudes toward the Galilean tradition. I begin by describing their respective approaches to the problem of objectivity by examining their accounts of the origins of science in Husserl's Vienna Lecture and Popper's Conjectures and Refutations. Each of them explicitly takes up the problem of objectivity in The Origin of Geometry and Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject, respectively, and it is here that (...) they develop their notions of the role played by subjectivity in science. I argue that Popper suffers from a commitment to subjectivism even in the course of renouncing the subject as irrelevant for science. Husserl, on the other hand, sees in the possibility of crisis the need to reinstate subjectivist concerns in order for any discourse to be capable of saying something about the world. Husserl thus proposes a scientism which takes account of the fact that the world is, first and foremost, experienced by subjects. I contend that Popper can ultimately be held to the same position, and thus be forced to qualify his strong dismissal of subjectivity. (shrink)

: Grebowicz argues from the perspective of Jean-François Lyotard's critique of deliberative democracy that the project of democratizing knowledge may bring us closer to terror than to justice. The successful formulation of a critical standpoint requires that we figure the political as itself a contested site, and incorporate this into our theorizing about the role of dissent in the production of knowledges. This essay contrasts Lyotard's notion of the differend with Chantal Mouffe's agonistic model.

Shows and describes state parks, covered bridges, battlefields, and historic buildings.

This book, based on the Round Table on Bioethics and Women held at UNESCO during the Fourth Session of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC), presents the ...

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