Interest in orthographic processing reflects an expansion, not constriction, of the scope of research in visual word recognition. Transposition effects are merely one aspect of investigations into orthographic encoding, while open bigrams can accommodate differences across languages. The target article's inaccurate characterization of the study of orthographic processing is not conducive to the advancement of VWR research.

I discuss weaknesses of the proposed model related to reinstantiation of encodings recorded by the hippocampal complex and to the inability of the model to explain complexity phenomena. An alternative model that also addresses the formation of hierarchical representations of sentences in working memory is outlined, and the ability of this model to account for complexity phenomena is briefly reviewed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ImagesDiana Cooper lives and works in New York City. She received her BA from Harvard College and MFA from Hunter College, and has been the recipient of a Rome Prize (2003–04), a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2000), and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2000).Cooper has exhibited extensively both in the United States and abroad. She has had solo shows at Postmasters Gallery in New York City; the (...) Drawing Room and Hales Gallery in London; Chapter in Cardiff; Staubkohler Galerie in Zürich; Carl Berg Gallery in Los Angeles; and Numark Gallery in Washington DC. She has participated in numerous group shows at venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria; the Brooklyn Museum; the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; the Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen; the Sharjah Museum of Art, UAE; the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs; and PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City.In 2007 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland will devote a major exhibition to her work.Please contact Postmasters Gallery for further [email protected] www.postmastersart.com Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1 Diana Cooper Speedway (front) (2002). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2 Diana Cooper Speedway (back) (2002). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 3 Diana Cooper And I Couldn’t Find You (1998). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 4 Diana Cooper And I Couldn’t Find You (1998). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 5 Diana Cooper Emerger (detail) (2005–06). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 6 Diana Cooper My Eye Travels (2001–2004). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 7 Diana Cooper Push Gently (2002). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 8 Diana Cooper Swarm (2003–05). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 9 Diana Cooper The Black One (1997). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 10 Diana Cooper Mechanical Cloud (2004–05). Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 11 Diana Cooper Moving Targets (2003).Copyright © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

New Tenth Anniversary edition of this classic text with a new preface by the author, compares myths about meat-eating with myths about manliness, and seeks to ...

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

The pioneering work of Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768) identified a homoerotic appreciation of male beauty in classical Greek sculpture, a fascination that had endured in Western art since the Greeks. Yet after Winckelmann, the value (even the possibility) of art's queer beauty was often denied. Several theorists, notably the philosopher Immanuel Kant, broke sexual attraction and aesthetic appreciation into separate or dueling domains. In turn, sexual desire and aesthetic pleasure had to be profoundly rethought by later writers. Whitney Davis follows (...) how such innovative thinkers as John Addington Symonds, Michel Foucault, and Richard Wollheim rejoined these two domains, reclaiming earlier insights about the mutual implication of sexuality and aesthetics. Addressing texts by Arthur Schopenhauer, Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee, and Sigmund Freud, among many others, Davis criticizes modern approaches, such as Kantian idealism, Darwinism, psychoanalysis, and analytic aesthetics, for either reducing aesthetics to a question of sexuality or for removing sexuality from the aesthetic field altogether. Despite these schematic reductions, sexuality always returns to aesthetics, and aesthetic considerations always recur in sexuality. Davis particularly emphasizes the way in which philosophies of art since the late eighteenth century have responded to nonstandard sexuality, especially homoeroticism, and how theories of nonstandard sexuality have drawn on aesthetics in significant ways. Many imaginative and penetrating critics have wrestled productively, though often inconclusively and "against themselves," with the aesthetic making of sexual life and new forms of art made from reconstituted sexualities. Through a critique that confronts history, philosophy, science, psychology, and dominant theories of art and sexuality, Davis challenges privileged types of sexual and aesthetic creation imagined in modern culture-and assumed today. (shrink)

Small family businesses have generally been shown to exhibit significant concern for social responsibility, especially at the community level. Despite the reported heterogeneity of family firms in their preferences for and participation in social responsibility, the drivers of such differences are not agreed upon in the literature. We draw from enlightened self-interest and social capital theories by exploring their complementary and competing implications for the effect of duration and community satisfaction on participation in community-oriented social responsibility. Additionally, drawing on the (...) association between gender and self-construal and evidence that gender shapes helping and giving behaviors, we assess the moderating role of the gender of the firm manager in these relationships. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 279 family businesses and find support that gender moderates the relationship between community duration and satisfaction and measures of CSR. (shrink)

Moving beyond identity politics while continuing to respect diverse entities and concerns, Whitney A. Bauman builds a planetary politics that better responds to the realities of a pluralistic world. Calling attention to the historical, political, and ecological influences shaping our understanding of nature, religion, humanity, and identity, Bauman collapses the boundaries separating male from female, biology from machine, human from more than human, and religion from science, encouraging readers to embrace hybridity and the inherent fluctuations of an open, evolving (...) global community. As he outlines his planetary ethic, Bauman concurrently develops an environmental ethic of movement that relies not on place but on the daily connections we make across the planet. He shows how both identity politics and environmental ethics fail to realize planetary politics and action, limited as they are by foundational modes of thought that create entire worlds out of their own logic. Introducing a postfoundational vision not rooted in the formal principles of "nature" or "God" and not based in the idea of human exceptionalism, Bauman draws on cutting-edge insights from queer, poststructural, and deconstructive theory and makes a major contribution to the study of religion, science, politics, and ecology. (shrink)

Introduction : points of departure -- A genealogy of the Christian colonial mindset : ex nihilo from disputed beginnings to orthodox origins -- Ex nihilo and the origin of an empire -- Ex nihilo, erasure and discovery? -- The cogito, ex nihilo, and the legacy of John Locke -- The creation ex nihilo of terra nullius lands : omnipotent nations and the logic of global-colonization -- From epistemologies of domination to grounded thinking -- Opening words about God onto creatio continua (...) -- Creatio continua "all the way down": a post-colonial, planetary understanding of continuing creation -- Conclusion : a brief thought after. (shrink)

In this book, Carol Gould offers a fundamental reconsideration of the theory of democracy, arguing that democratic decision-making should apply not only to politics but also to economic and social life. Professor Gould redefines traditional concepts of freedom and social equality, and proposes a principle of Equal Positive Freedom in which individual freedom and social co-operation are seen to be compatible. Reformulating basic conceptions of property, authority, economic justice and human rights, the author suggests a number of ways in (...) which these principles could be realised in social institutions. She also discusses such issues as democratic control of technology, the nature of democratic personality, and the question of democracy in international relations. (shrink)

This paper examines an ancient debate over the rationality of perception. What leads the Stoics to affirm, and the Epicureans to deny, that to form a sense-impression is an activity of reason? The answer, we argue, lies in a disagreement over what is required for epistemic success. For the Stoics, epistemic success consists in believing the right propositions, and only rational states, in virtue of their predicational structure, put us in touch with propositions. Since they identify some sense-impressions as criteria (...) of truth and thus as the basis for epistemic success, the Stoics maintain that sense-impressions must be rational. The Epicureans agree with the Stoics that sense-impressions function as criteria of truth, and also agree broadly on what it means for a state to be rational, but deny that sense-impressions are rational because (1) they think that epistemic success must be supported by a state that is necessarily error-free and (2) accept that rational states can be false. In reconstructing this debate, we refine the standard interpretation of the fundamental difference between Epicurean and Stoic epistemology and also develop parallels with epistemological debates today. One upshot is a more nuanced appreciation of the merits of Epicurean epistemology vis-à-vis the Stoics. (shrink)

In this book, Carol Gould offers a fundamental reconsideration of the theory of democracy, arguing that democratic decision-making should apply not only to politics but also to economic and social life. Professor Gould redefines traditional concepts of freedom and social equality, and proposes a principle of Equal Positive Freedom in which individual freedom and social co-operation are seen to be compatible. Reformulating basic conceptions of property, authority, economic justice and human rights, the author suggests a number of ways in (...) which these principles could be realised in social institutions. She also discusses such issues as democratic control of technology, the nature of democratic personality, and the question of democracy in international relations. (shrink)

Although corporate social responsibility appears to be mutually beneficial for companies and consumers, the modern marketplace has left both parties in vulnerable positions. Consumers are increasingly subjected to incongruent CSR messages such as greenwashing, while companies are trapped in a strategic positioning dilemma with regard to how to most effectively and ethically approach CSR communication. This has led some companies to instead adopt a strategically silent approach, such as greenhushing. To capture this CSR positioning dilemma and test the positioning effects (...) on consumers’ attributions, this study applies attribution theory to conceptualize four distinct CSR positions which reflect varying combinations of congruence or incongruence between a company’s external CSR communication and its actual internal CSR actions. Using an online experiment, the effects of the CSR positions on consumer attributions for intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motivations and purchase intentions were tested across three CSR domains: environmental; labor; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion. Overall, the findings attest to the significant effect of internal–external congruence-based CSR positioning on how consumers respond to CSR communication. Importantly, the results indicate that discreet positioning is perceived similarly to uniform positioning, while misleading and unethical tactics such as CSR-washing are sure to backfire. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Using case studies from the Indonesian context, this article argues that the current truth regimes we now live by are always and already “hybrid” and that we need new methods for understanding meaning-making practices in an era of globalization and climate change than comparative approaches allow. Following the works of such thinkers as physicist Karen Barad, political philosopher William Connolly, and eco-critic Timothy Morton, this article develops the idea that an event-oriented or object-oriented approach better captures our hybrid meaning-making practices. (...) Not only that, but it also provides a lens through which to understand traditions as polydox and the rise of “modern” science as itself a planetary phenomenon. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the temporal openness of perceptual experience provides insight into the basic structure of learning. I draw on Husserl's account of the mutability of the retained past in Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, and Merleau‐Ponty's account of the perceptual field, as well as his remarks on habit, in Phenomenology of Perception, in order to elucidate the relation between the perceptual past and the future it portends. More specifically, I argue that retention and habituation in (...) perceptual experience open dimensions of meaning that transform the initial, initiating, experiences in which meaning is first established. As a result, our experience of meaning is always subject to further development that we cannot anticipate. This temporal openness has consequences for our learning to navigate a perceptual field, but also, I argue, for our developing more complex ways of engaging with the world. Specifically, I show how learning requires that we commit ourselves to an object or task before we are in a position to recognize the implications or significance of our commitment. I further consider the role that others play in the inherent openness of learning to the development of new meaning. (shrink)

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how to make (...) a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

Cet article relève une impasse qui apparaît quand les travaux récents sur la suspension du jugement sont intégrés aux solutions évidentialistes au problème de la «mauvaise sorte de raison» : il semble qu’il n’existe aucune raison pour suspendre le jugement. Deux réponses possibles à cette impasse sont considérées ici : l’une redéfinit la suspension du jugement comme une action mentale, l’autre la redéfinit comme une attitude de second ordre. L’article fait valoir que ces réponses n’évitent l’impasse qu’en compromettant de manière (...) inacceptable la notion de suspension du jugement. (shrink)

At the end of the Meno, the character Socrates claims that true doxa is distinguished from epistēmē by a working out of the explanation. This chapter argues that working out the explanation consists, for Socrates, in seeing how the fact to be explained is grounded in facts about the natures of the relevant fundamental entities of the domain to which it belongs. It reconstructs the resulting conception of epistēmē. Once that reconstruction is complete, it argues that notions of epistemic justification (...) are out of place in interpreting the Meno. It then appeals to recent work in epistemology to settle the long-standing question of whether Socrates' account of epistēmē is better interpreted as an account of knowledge or as an account of understanding, arguing that it is more charitably taken in the latter way. Moreover, the chapter notes that Socrates' account of epistēmē provides insights that any philosopher interested in the nature of understanding should take seriously. (shrink)

Essai montaignien, maximes et fragments, confessions, exercice spirituel, journal, mémoires ou autobiographies, autant de genres abordés dans ce volume. Certains relèvent d'une tradition de la méditation et de l'exercice spirituel, alors que d'autres sont plus inventifs. Les interprétations proposées ici invitent à réssusciter ce mouvement qui animait l'écriture avant qu'il ne se fige.

The history of modern and contemporary art provides many examples of the "queering" of cultural and social norms. It has been tempting to consider this process of subversion and transgression, or "outlaw representation", as well as related performances of "camp" or other gay inflections of the dominant forms of representation, to be the most creative mode of queer cultural production. Whether or not this is true in the history of later nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, we can identify a historical process (...) in modern culture that has worked in the opposite direction--namely, the constitution of aesthetic ideals, cultural norms that claim validity within an entire society, which have been based on manifestly homoerotic prototypes and significances. There has been little subversion or camp in these configurations. Indeed, perhaps there has been a surfeit of idealizing configuration and normalizing representation. But as Johann Joachim Winckelmann's art history and Immanuel Kant's aesthetics might suggest, such idealization can be no less queer than camp inflections or outlaw representations. (shrink)

In just a few years, the book became an underground classic. Neither Man Nor Beast takes Adams' thought one step further.

Withholding or withdrawing life-saving ventilators can become necessary when resources are insufficient. With rising cases in many countries, and likely further peaks in the coming colder seasons, ventilator triage guidance remains a central part of the COVID-19 policy response. The dominant model in ventilator triage guidelines prioritises the ethical principles of saving the most lives and saving the most life-years. We sought to ascertain to what extent this focus aligns, or conflicts, with the preferences of disadvantaged minority populations. We conducted (...) a bibliographical search of PubMed and Google Scholar and reviewed all ventilator rationing guidelines included in major recent systematic reviews, yielding 589 studies before screening. Post screening, we found six studies comprising a total of 10 591 participants, with 1247 from disadvantaged populations. Three studies reported findings stratified by race and age, two of which stratified by income. Studies included two to seven principles; all included ‘save the most lives’. Involvement of disadvantaged minority populations in eliciting preferences is very limited; few studies capture race and income. This is concerning, as despite relatively small numbers and framing effects there is an observable and plausible trend suggesting that disadvantaged groups worry that dominant principles reduce their chances of receiving a ventilator. To avoid compounding prior historical and structural disadvantage, policy makers need to engage more fully with these populations in designing and justifying ventilator rationing guidance and review their adequacy. Likewise, clinicians need to be aware that their implementation of dominant triage guidelines is viewed with higher levels of concern by minority populations. (shrink)

Pateman challenges the way contemporary society functions by questioning the standard interpretation of an idea that is deeply embedded in American and British political thought: that our rights and freedoms derive from the social contract explicated by Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau and interpreted in the United States by the Founding Fathers. The author shows how we are told only half the story of the original contract that establishes modern patriarchy. The sexual contract is ignored and thus men's patriarchal right over (...) women is also glossed over. No attention is paid to the problems that arise when women are excluded from the original contract but incorporated into the new contractual order. One of the main targets of the book is those who try to turn contractarian theory to progressive use, and a major thesis of the book is that this is not possible. Thus those feminists who have looked to a more "proper" contract- one between genuinely equal partners, or one entered into without any coercion- are misleading themselves. In the author's words, "In contract theory universal freedom is always a hypothesis, a story, a political fiction. Contract always generates political right in the forms of domination and subordination." Thus the book is also aimed at mainstream political theorists, and socialist and other critics of contract theory. The author offers a sweeping challenge to conventional understandings- of both left and right- of actual contracts in everyday life: the marriage contract, the employment contract, the prostitution contract, and the new surrogate mother contract. By bringing a feminist perspective to bear on the contradictions and paradoxes surrounding women and contract, and the relation between the sexes, she is able to shed new light on fundamental political problems of freedom and subordination. (shrink)

We examine two connectionist networks—a fractal learning neural network (FLNN) and a Simple Recurrent Network (SRN)—that are trained to process center-embedded symbol sequences. Previous work provides evidence that connectionist networks trained on infinite-state languages tend to form fractal encodings. Most such work focuses on simple counting recursion cases (e.g., anbn), which are not comparable to the complex recursive patterns seen in natural language syntax. Here, we consider exponential state growth cases (including mirror recursion), describe a new training scheme that seems (...) to facilitate learning, and note that the connectionist learning of these cases has a continuous metamorphosis property that looks very different from what is achievable with symbolic encodings. We identify a property—ragged progressive generalization—which helps make this difference clearer. We suggest two conclusions. First, the fractal analysis of these more complex learning cases reveals the possibility of comparing connectionist networks and symbolic models of grammatical structure in a principled way—this helps remove the black box character of connectionist networks and indicates how the theory they support is different from symbolic approaches. Second, the findings indicate the value of future, linked mathematical and empirical work on these models—something that is more possible now than it was 10 years ago. (shrink)

did plato and aristotle have anything to say about belief? The answer to this question might seem blindingly obvious: of course they did. Plato distinguishes belief from knowledge in the Meno, Republic, and Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the Posterior Analytics. Plato distinguishes belief from perception in the Theaetetus, and Aristotle does so in the De anima. They talk about the distinction between true and false beliefs, and the ways in which belief can mislead and the ways in which (...) it can steer us aright. Indeed, they make belief a central component of their epistemologies.The view underlying these claims—one so widespread these days as to remain largely unquestioned—is that when Plato and Aristotle talk... (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the interests of non-shareholder stakeholders in the context of a shareholder risk model. We first differentiate shareholders and nonshareholders with regard to the nature of their risks, their awareness of risks, their abilities to avoid risk, and their abilities to ensure compensation for risk. We then develop a model of measuring the risks facing stakeholders that addresses human risk magnitude and environmental risk magnitude. We conclude with implications for theory and practice.

In this paper, we explore the interests of non-shareholder stakeholders in the context of a shareholder risk model. We first differentiate shareholders and nonshareholders with regard to the nature of their risks, their awareness of risks, their abilities to avoid risk, and their abilities to ensure compensation for risk. We then develop a model of measuring the risks facing stakeholders that addresses human risk magnitude and environmental risk magnitude. We conclude with implications for theory and practice.

Recollection is central to the epistemology of Plato’sMeno. After all, the character Socrates claims that recollection is the process whereby embodied human souls bind down true opinions (doxai) and acquire knowledge (epistêmê). This paper examines the exchange between Socrates and Meno’s slave to determine (1) what steps on the path to acquiring knowledge are part of the process of recollection and (2) what is required for a subject to count as having recollected something. I argue that the key to answering (...) these questions is to get clear on the kind of process recollection is supposed to be. In particular, I argue that recollection is a process akin to the kind of process Aristotle calls “changes” (kinêseisor incompleteenergeiai). The key feature of such processes is that they aim at an end beyond themselves and are not complete until that end comes about. In the case of recollection, the end is knowledge, but inferior mental states, such as false opinion, puzzlement (aporia), and true opinion can come about because of a process of recollection without making it the case that the subject has recollected anything. I argue that this interpretation provides a textually supported and philosophically coherent understanding of Socrates’ conception of recollection. (shrink)

BackgroundCritical to conducting high quality research is the ability to attract and retain participants, especially for longitudinal studies. Understanding participant experiences and motivators or barriers to participating in clinical research is crucial. There are limited data on healthy participant experiences in longitudinal research, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study aims to investigate quantitatively participant experiences in a South African birth cohort study.MethodsMaternal participant experience was evaluated by a self-administered survey in the Drakenstein Child Health Study, a longitudinal birth (...) cohort study investigating the early life determinants of child health. Pregnant mothers, enrolled during the second trimester, were followed through childbirth and the early childhood years. Satisfaction scores were derived from the participant experience survey and quantitatively analyzed; associations between satisfaction scores and sociodemographic variables were then investigated using a linear regression model.ResultsData were included from 585 pregnant mothers, who had participated in the study for a median time of 16 months. Overall participant satisfaction was high and associated with increased attendance of study visits. Reasons for participating were a belief that involvement would improve their health, their child’s health or the health of family and friends. Potential reasons for leaving the study were inconvenience, not receiving clinical or study results, and unexpected changes in study visits or procedures. Variables associated with higher overall satisfaction scores were no prior participation in research, higher socioeconomic status, less intensive follow-up schedules and having experienced stressful life events in the past year.ConclusionsSatisfaction scores were high and associated with increased visit attendance. Participants’ perceived benefits of study participation, most notably the potential for an improvement in the health of their child, were a significant motivator to enroll and remain in the study. The consistent theme of perceived health benefits as a motivator to join and remain in the study raises the question of whether participation in research results in actual improvements in health. (shrink)

"This book offers a multidisciplinary environmental approach to ethics in response to the contemporary challenge of climate change caused by globalized economics and consumption. This book synthesises the incredible complexity of the problem and the necessity of action in response, highlighting the unambiguous problem facing humanity in the 21st century, but arguing that it is essential to develop an ethics housed in ambiguity in response. Environmental Ethics and Uncertainty is divided into theoretical and applied chapters, with the theoretical sections engaging (...) in dialogue with theorists and scholars from a variety of disciplines, while the applied chapters offer insight from 20th century activists who demonstrate and/or illuminate the theory, including Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson and Frank Lloyd Wright. This book is written for scholars and students in the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies and the environmental humanities, and will appeal to courses in religion, philosophy, ethics, politics and social theory"--. (shrink)

Abstract This article explores how religion and science, as worlding practices, are changed by the processes of globalization and global climate change. In the face of these processes, two primary methods of meaning making are emerging: the logic of globalization and planetary assemblages. The former operates out of the same logic as extant axial age religions, the Enlightenment, and Modernity. It is caught up in the process of universalizing meanings, objective truth, and a single reality. The latter suggests that the (...) processes of globalization and climate change break open any universalizing attempt at meaning onto a proliferation of different, evolving planetary contexts. Both science and religion are affected by these changes, and the ways in which they shape our understandings of and relationship to the rest of the natural world are changed. (shrink)

In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty presents an account of an “anonymous” body that informs perception and habit and that exerts a normative force in shaping more personal aspects of who we are. This paper demonstrates the relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s account of anonymity to interpersonal experience. I argue that although anonymity is a necessary condition of interpersonal life, it inhibits our recognition of our own and others’ freedom. I draw on Derrida’s analysis of justice in “Force of Law” to propose that (...) ethical interpersonal life requires that we develop a critical relationship to the anonymity that underlies our experience of others.Dans la Phénoménologie de la perception Merleau-Ponty présente sa conception de l’anonymat du corps, en tant qu’il influence la perception et l’habitude et en tant qu’il exerce une force normative sur les aspects personnels du soi. L’article analyse la pertinence de cette conception de l’anonymat pour l’expérience interpersonnelle. Bien que l’anonymat soit une condition nécessaire à la vie interpersonnelle, je soutiens qu’il nous empêche de reconnaître notre liberté ainsi que celle des autres. En faisant appel à l’analyse de la justice entreprise par Derrida dans Force de Loi, je montre qu’une vie interpersonnelle éthique nécessite le développement d’un rapport critique à l’anonymat qui sous-tend notre expérience des autres. (shrink)

There is no broadly accepted definition of ‘life.’ Suggested definitions face problems, often in the form of robust counter-examples. Here we use insights from philosophical investigations into language to argue that defining ‘life’ currently poses a dilemma analogous to that faced by those hoping to define ‘water’ before the existence of molecular theory. In the absence of an analogous theory of the nature of living systems, interminable controversy over the definition of life is inescapable.

Some poststructuralist feminist theorists hold that the body is merely the product of cultural determinants and that gender is a free-floating artifice. I discuss how this "denaturalization" of gender and the body entrenches us yet deeper in the nature/culture dichotomy. The body, I maintain, needs to be "renaturalized" so that its earthy significance is recognized. Through a feminist reappropriation of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, I develop a noncausal linkage between gender and the body. I present the body as an (...) indeterminate constancy that is culturally and historically contextualized, on the one hand, yet part of our embodied givenness on the other. Interspersed throughout the paper are passages that describe my own bodily condition as I wrote the paper. (shrink)

In 1965, the American folklorist Alan Lomax set out on a mission: to view, code, catalogue and preserve the totality of the world’s dance traditions. Believing that dance carried otherwise inaccessible information about social structures, work practices and the history of human migration, Lomax and his collaborators gathered more than 250,000 feet of raw film footage and analyzed it using a new system of movement analysis. Lomax’s aims, however, went beyond the merely scientific. He hoped to use his ‘Choreometrics’ project (...) as the foundation for a universally available visual and textual atlas of human movement. This article explores how Lomax’s archival ambitions supported his efforts to enact a wholesale ‘recalibration of the human perceptual apparatus’ and situates Choreometrics at the nexus of new techniques of data-gathering and the cultural ferment of the 1960s. (shrink)