In this essay the authors provide arguments that teaching is an art and that teachers can learn much about their trade from a careful study of the performances of other artists. Artists and teachers have the same basic challenge: in order to be successful, both groups have to obtain and retain peoples’ attention. This also holds for popular music artists. Ten female student teachers specializing in the Pre-school and Foundation phases of schooling (four-to-six-year olds), and six lecturers (...) class='Hi'>from the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, participated in a workshop at a local game lodge. During the workshop, videos of ABBA songs and Mamma Mia! The Movie were analyzed and discussed. The theme of the workshop was “Being an Excellent Teacher: Appreciating ABBA.” The 4D-cycle of Appreciative Inquiry– Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny–was used as a methodological framework to identify numerous positive themes with possible classroom applications from the songs and the film. These themes were then connected to educational theory and embedded in the insights of Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Judy Cramer and other people involved with ABBA. A reflective report by one student teacher about the impact the workshop had on her views of teaching and an excellent class that she presented is also included. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

In their invocations of the Muses the early epic poets use indifferently verbs meaning ‘tell’, ‘speak of’ and the verb which we normally translate as ‘sing’ When they refer directly to their own performance they may use the non-committalμνήσομαι, or ἐρέω, ἐνισπεῖνbut more often it isάείδω, ἄρχομ ἀείδεινor something of the sort; and they will pray for goodἀοιδήor hope for reward from it. We cannot make a distinction between two styles of performance, one characterized asἀείδειν the other as ἐνέπεινthe (...) Iliad beginsμῆνιν ἄειδε θεάbut later hasἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι;Hesiod moves straight fromχαίρετε τέκνα Διός, δότε δ᾿ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήνtoεἴπατε δ᾿ ὡς... ταῦτά μοι ἔσπετε Μοῦσαι... καὶ εἴπατε; the author of the Hymn to Pan beginsἔννεπε Μοῦσαand endsἴλαμαι δέ σ᾿ ἀοιδῇ... καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ᾿ ἀοιδῆς. (shrink)

The African philosophy of Ubuntu is typically characterised as a communitarian philosophy that emphasises virtues such as compassion, tolerance and harmony. In recent years there has been growing interest in this philosophy, and in how it can be applied to a variety of disciplines and issues. Several authors have provided useful introductions of Ubuntu in the field of business ethics and suggested theoretical ways in which it could be applied. The purpose of this paper is to extend this discussion by (...) providing a more critical analysis of Ubuntu and business ethics with the aim of clarifying the role that Ubuntu can play, and providing guidance for further research in this area. The analysis consists of three sections. In the first, certain problems are identified within the existing literature. This is followed by a consideration of alternative perspectives and interpretations of Ubuntu. The last section, following from the first two, identifies specific areas requiring further research, both empirical and non-empirical, as well as ways in which Ubuntu could be fruitfully applied. (shrink)

In the book The Stolen Bible: From Tool of Imperialism to African Icon (2016) the author provided a detailed analysis of Robert Moffat’s translation practice. In this article the author takes that analysis further, using the theoretical framework provided by Nathan Esala in this PhD thesis and forthcoming book, namely ‘translation as invasion’. Esala traces the colonial history of Africa-based translation practice, theorising the practice as ‘translation as invasion’. This article draws on Esala’s theorising in re-analysing Moffat’s translation (...) practice among the BaTlhaping. The article then goes on to argue for forms of decolonial ‘re-translation’, focussing on two forms of decolonial translation, Contextual Bible Study (CBS) as translation (as advocated by Esala) and Julius Nyerere’s use of indigenous Tanzanian poetics for translating the gospels. The article uses Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘heterotopic space’ and Sithembiso Zwane’s notions of ‘invigorated space’ and ‘invented space’ to theorise CBS and Nyerere’s poetics as forms of decolonial space for African-led re-translation, with potential implications for African community-based participatory development. Contribution: The article demonstrates how translation as a form of colonial invasion is practised by the missionary Robert Moffat, and how such forms of translation are being resisted through indigenous African reception of the Bible through re-translation practices. (shrink)

From the Archaic period to the sixth century A.D., as well as in later Byzantine lexica, we find numerous instances of the word TTTJKTIS as the name of a musical instrument. It occurs in some 78 passages:1 enough, one might suppose, to establish its meaning beyond peradventure. Yet of all ancient instrument names, this one proves to be the most Protean. In the earlier sources it designates a harp. Later it is applied to other types of stringed instrument, both (...) to lyres and to lutes. But it does not remain confined to the chordophone category, for in the Imperial period it frequently signifies a panpipe. As no complete collection and analysis of the evidence has ever been made, I have thought it worth while to undertake one. (shrink)

From the Archaic period to the sixth century A.D., as well as in later Byzantine lexica, we find numerous instances of the word TTTJKTIS as the name of a musical instrument. It occurs in some 78 passages:1 enough, one might suppose, to establish its meaning beyond peradventure. Yet of all ancient instrument names, this one proves to be the most Protean. In the earlier sources it designates a harp. Later it is applied to other types of stringed instrument, both (...) to lyres and to lutes. But it does not remain confined to the chordophone category, for in the Imperial period it frequently signifies a panpipe. As no complete collection and analysis of the evidence has ever been made, I have thought it worth while to undertake one. (shrink)

It is known that the text of the Qur'an is artistic prose that has reached an unprecedented level in terms of its unique style, superiority, and robustness. Likewise, it can be said for hadith texts reach the peak of eloquence and beauty. Scholars have paid attention to the Qur'an and Hadith texts for centuries in their scientific studies. There are also poets among those who care. Inspired by both texts, they tried to use their style in their odes and literary (...) products through quotation, reference, compensation, and similar arts. From this point of view, our research aims to examine the phenomenon of religious intertextuality in African Arabic poetry -on the condition that the study is limited to the West African region- and to explain its places. In addition to learning to what extent the African poet was influenced by the style, language structure, and methods of the Qur'an and hadith texts, it also explores the relationship adopted between his literary references. What gives this study important is that it attempts to apply one of the modern critical theories (intertextuality) to Arabic poetry from West Africa, which many researchers do not know about. This research will prove the rooting of the art of Arabic poetry in West Africa through its intertextuality with the ancient Arab heritage, as well as the validity of its use as a scientific material for contemporary theories. During the research, it was determined that various religious intertextuality was used in the poems of African poets. The poets did not adhere to a certain form in their poems, on the contrary, they used different methods at every stage of their poems. This revealed their culture and knowledge of Arabic literature and poets and showed the extent of their devotion to the Qur'an and Sunnah. Likewise, by referring to historical events and religious people with a religious dimension, they revealed creativity in their poems. For this reason, they were able to paint the most beautiful artistic paintings, which impressed both the reader and the listener. (shrink)

The Afro-Brazilian connections between the coast of West Africa and Brazil date back to the transatlantic slave trade and the Muslim uprising in Bahia in 1933. After this major rebellion, many former slaves returned to West Africa bearing a large Brazilian cultural imprint consisting of architectural skills, culinary traditions, and song and dance. They also brought back Brazilian names and cosmopolitan outlooks. From Africa, enslaved Africans carried with them to Brazil philosophical and cosmological outlooks (...) and indeed, culture generally. Some of these cross-fertilizations are what are interrogated in this intellectual and cultural exchange. (shrink)

The Christian church has always lived in tension between its global and its local identities, between gospel and culture. One aspect in which this tension plays out is in worship music. As the gospel came to them, many African churches adopted a North American/european form of song, ignoring or neglecting their local, traditional music. They opted for a more global identity and minimized their local identity. The church amongst the Songhai of West Africa is an example (...) of this phenomenon. A church that neglects its local identity, however, has little appeal to the surrounding society and loses its prophetic voice to the community. Resolving the tension between the two identities is an important matter for every church. Thinking through worship music practices plays a key part in resolving this tension. A tool called the ‘logophonic’ principle may be of help in this regard. The tool looks at both words and sounds to reexamine and renew worship practices and craft new music for congregations. This article explains how this tool might work and urges the necessity of good theological thinking and about worship and worship music. (shrink)

The Public Sphere from Outside the West brings together established and emerging new voices from philosophy, literature, anthropology, history, migration studies and information technology to address the present reality of the public sphere. In the age where everyone is in the public and everything is visible, this volume creates a delay in which the internet of things, mass surveillance and social media are asked "What is/not the Public?†? The essays bring to attention the formation of geo-politically and (...) historically distinct public spheres from South Africa, India, America and Europe. Such formations are found not only in the postcolonial histories of print, photography, cinema and caricature but also those underway in the digital era, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy movements and Anonymous. Through critical engagement with philosophers such as Kant, Heidegger, Benjamin, Habermas and Arendt, the determining concepts of the Public Sphere-privacy, secrecy, reason, the people-are shown to be undergoing epistemological and practical ruptures. Demonstrating the necessity of these considerations to understand the world public that is rapidly transforming this concept in radical ways through technologies today, this is the first collection on the subject to feature an impressive range of international thinkers. Global and timely in outlook, it breaks new ground and changes our way of looking at politics in the 21st century. (shrink)

How did Nietzsche the philosopher come into being? The Nietzsche known today did not develop 'naturally', through the gradual maturation of some inborn character. Instead, from an early age he engaged in a self-conscious campaign to follow his own guidance, thereby cultivating the critical capacities and personal vision which figure in his books. As a result, his published works are steeped in values that he discovered long before he mobilized their results. Indeed, one could argue that the first work (...) which he authored was not a book at all, but his own persona. Based on scholarship previously available only in German, this book examines Nietzsche's unstable childhood, his determination to advance through self-formation, and the ways in which his environment, notably the Prussian education system, alternately influenced and impeded his efforts to find his own way. It will be essential reading for all who are interested in Nietzsche. (shrink)

Based on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century accounts written by and for slavers, this article investigates the provisioning of the French Middle Passage. As the transatlantic trade in African captives developed, foodstuffs for the feeding of both Europeans and Africans figured prominently in a specifically Atlantic system of commodity exchanges. The trade in foodstuffs depended most heavily on African subsistence systems encountered along the coasts of West Africa, but a surprising quantity of French and other European foodstuffs were embarked specifically (...) for the Middle Passage, revealing, I argue, the precariousness of conditions of trade and of European slaving factories. As a key element of Atlantic political economy, the study of food and its transatlantic provisioning networks sheds light not only on the governance and regulation of the networks themselves, but also on the ability of early modern states to establish and maintain metropolitan control, on the growth of local, colonial forms of autonomy and authority, and on the complex systems of ‘national’ and colonial interdependence that lay behind the expansion of every Atlantic colony. I conclude that this study of provisioning demonstrates that however fractured and differentiated, imperial power was an irrefutable aspect of colonial continuity. (shrink)

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, otherwise known as COVID-19 brought about the use of new terminologies—new lexical items such as social distancing, self-isolation, and lockdown. In developed countries, basic social amenities to support these are taken for granted; this is not the case in West African countries. Instead, those suggested safeguards against contracting COVID-19 have exposed the infrastructural deficit in West African countries. In addition, and more profoundly, these safeguards against the disease have distorted the traditional (...) community-individuality balance. The enforcement of social distancing, self-isolation, and lockdown has made it impossible for West Africans to drift to their ancestral homes and villages, as is usually the case in times of crisis, with attendant consequences for communal life and traditional burial rites. This could be one of the reasons why some COVID-19 patients are escaping from isolation centres, since to die in such centres violates their bodily integrity at an ontological level. (shrink)

This article has already been published in, and is available in open access from Time and Society, 0, 2017, pp. 1-29. We thank Stanley Blue for his permission to republish it here.: The practice turn in social theory has renewed interest in conceptualising the temporal organisation of social life as a way of explaining contemporary patterns of living and consuming. As a result, the interest to develop analyses of time in both practice theories and practice theory-based - Sur le (...) concept de rythme. (shrink)

Drawing on the recognition that questions of discourse and power are vital components in analysing the public participation in environmental governance, this paper examines the ways in which dominant scientific discourses about the Earth's climate inform the types of public talk facilitated in and by mini-publics, particularly when they are 'scaled up' to address environmental issues such as climate change. World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) serves as a case study. Conceived and organised by the Danish Board of Technology, (...) WWViews was a historically unprecedented public forum in which participants, invited from a range of nations, were given the opportunity to deliberate on key themes addressed in the negotiations taking place during the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen (COP 15). The overarching purpose of this analysis is to invite reflection on the practices and assumptions that serve to make up publics in relation to issues that have been framed, predominantly, as scientific, universal and global. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. (...) First, because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the success of rural nongovernmental organizations depends heavily on leadership and the organizational abilities of individual leaders. Drawing on the recent history of the cotton farmers' movement in Mali, this article identifies critical issues related to the development and sustainability of rural leadership. Special attention is given to how both heroic and post-heroic approaches to leadership might be joined in order to help nongovernmental organizations contribute to both political democratization and economic development.

It seems trivial to identify sound sequences as music or speech, particularly when the sequences come from different sound sources, such as an orchestra and a human voice. Can we also easily distinguish these categories when the sequence comes from the same sound source? On the basis of which acoustic features? We investigated these questions by examining listeners’ classification of sound sequences performed by an instrument intertwining both speech and music: the dùndún talking drum. The dùndún (...) is commonly used in south-west Nigeria as a musical instrument but is also perfectly fit for linguistic usage in what has been described as speech surrogates in Africa. One hundred seven participants from diverse geographical locations (15 different mother tongues represented) took part in an online experiment. Fifty-one participants reported being familiar with the dùndún talking drum, 55% of those being speakers of Yorùbá. During the experiment, participants listened to 30 dùndún samples of about 7s long, performed either as music or Yorùbá speech surrogate (n= 15 each) by a professional musician, and were asked to classify each sample as music or speech-like. The classification task revealed the ability of the listeners to identify the samples as intended by the performer, particularly when they were familiar with the dùndún, though even unfamiliar participants performed above chance. A logistic regression predicting participants’ classification of the samples from several acoustic features confirmed the perceptual relevance of intensity, pitch, timbre, and timing measures and their interaction with listener familiarity. In all, this study provides empirical evidence supporting the discriminating role of acoustic features and the modulatory role of familiarity in teasing apart speech and music. (shrink)

Collaborative research practices in the field of plant genetic resources must follow the principles of fairness and equity as defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). In this context the concepts of fairness and equity generally refer to the substantive and procedural dimensions associated with sharing the benefits of this research. But neither term is clearly defined by these international treaties, and the meanings attributed to (...) the concepts vary among different societies. This paper looks at the question of how to account for the diversity among value systems when conducting research that implicates diverse stakeholders and respects the requirements of fairness and equity. We incorporated an auto-ethnography method developed as part of a multi-stakeholder network involved in research projects on plant genetic resources in West Africa. A theatrical device was used as a framework for testing the principles of fairness and equity, helping us to collectively identify feelings of injustice, and explore the conditions for making collaborative research practices more ethical in ways that respect the perspectives of different stakeholders. In an environment of extensive political and socio-cognitive inequality, this approach makes it possible to explain the criteria relating to interactional justice and expectations in terms of socio-political and socio-emotional benefits. It also invites us to consider the principles of fairness and equity in a framework of ethical competence that goes beyond international directives. (shrink)

Violent conflicts in emerging democracies or societies in transition threaten the stability of state governance institutions, which brings about insecurity of lives, property and deepens the vicious cycle of poverty and criminality in Africa. The first responsibility of any government is to provide security of lives and property. At no time since Nigeria’s civil war has the country witnessed the resurgence of violence and insecurity that claims hundreds of lives weekly. It is a sectarian insurgence of multiple dimensions. This (...) article makes the case that Boko Haram is not just a religious phenomenon but a reflection of a so- cio-political, economic and ethnic problem caused by bad governance. As a result, Boko Haram has witnessed a cross-border influence and impact which has expanded its frontiers beyondNigeriato neighboring countries in the West African region. The theoretical framework employed in this article posits that Boko Haram has its roots fundamentally in poverty caused by bad governance in the Northern Moslem bend, in Nigeria and the West African Region where corruption, human rights violations, marginalization of cultural, political and religious groups have created the situation whereby weak state structures have abysmally failed to deliver on the development promises made during elections. So the emergence of Nigeria’s Boko Haram violence, as a result of the street poverty and the rise of unemployed street beggars, popularly known as Almajiris, and their use for electoral and party violence, was encouraged by the neglect and abandonment of the masses by the governors and other elected leaders. The expansion and consolidation of the Boko Haram insurgence to other parts of the country and neighboring West African nations was made possible by the already existing failed state institutions, bad governance and corruption and the existing band of small criminal sectarian groups that depend upon their survival on aids from Al Quaeda, drug gangs and sea piracy. The religious dimension is a marginal factor fueled by fundamental socio-economic and political variables which have been thrown up in the first place by bad governance and leadership in Nigeria. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Between God and the President: Literature and Censorship in North AfricaHafid Gafaiti (bio)Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.—George Bernard ShawThose who fight with the pen will perish by the sword.—Slogan of the Algerian Muslim fundamentalistsIf you speak up, you die. If you don’t speak up, you die. So, speak up and die!—Tahar Djaout, the first writer assassinated in the context of the current Algerian political crisisIn the (...) class='Hi'>West, censorship has been understood for the most part as the state’s control over cultural production. Many critics in the postwar period, however, have argued that other forms of censorship, such as market censorship, are comparable to the actions of the state. The Christian right’s attacks on art in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s together with Congressional moves to disempower and dismantle the NEA have generated a new set of debates about censorship in this country. It was understood that the extreme right sought to repress cultural productions carrying a message of ethnic and sexual difference, targeting the works by rappers, the photographer Mapplethorpe, Madonna’s music videos, and so on. The right provided rhetoric to support the privatization of public space, the control of language and public images, and the promotion of “safe” art.While many critics refer to this as the “new censorship,” structurally it is exactly the same as the “old” censorship, that is, state control intervening in the liberal subject’s absolute right to free expression. It appears that the dichotomy between the left’s claim for the absolute freedom of the artist and the right’s attempt to repress it is most often conceived in moral terms and is paradigmatic of the Western liberal oppositional categories used to describe censorship.This position views the relationship between art and censorship as either a bourgeois romantic opposition to political order or a corrupt collaboration by opportunistic apparatchiks. It leaves no room for what Michael Holquist, for example, calls “negotiation.” Moreover, it does not take into account the fact that—in Third World or socialist contexts, for example—the way certain intellectuals view their role vis-à-vis the state, society, and/or the people determines their degree of cooperation with censorship mechanisms.The problem with this Manichean vision is that it implies a notion of censorship that is ahistorical: it posits that there is an essential distinction between the censor and the [End Page 59] creator or free mind. On the one hand, as Miklos Haraszti accurately outlines, at least until very recently in the Eastern European context:Censorship is no longer a matter of simple state intervention. A new aesthetic culture has emerged in which censors and artists alike are entangled in a mutual embrace. Nor is it as distasteful as traditional critics of censorship imagine. The state is able to domesticate the artist because the artist has already made the state his home.[5]On the other hand, as Richard Burt rightly suggests:What counts as censorship is not always clear. Indeed, it is hard to see how one could call many contemporary cases censorship without either seriously distorting the traditional understanding of the term or redefining it to include so many practices—ranging from institutional regulation of free expression, market censorship, cutbacks in government funding for controversial art, boycotts, lawsuits, and marginalization and exclusion of artists based on their gender or race to “political correctness” in the university and the media—that the term is overwhelmed, even trivialized, its usefulness as a tool of cultural criticism called into question.[xiii]Recent events, not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world such as Algeria, the case on which I will concentrate, show that one cannot seriously conceive the question of censorship along the lines of closed, distinct, conceptual categories expressing absolute oppositions. In other words, it is necessary to take the concept of censorship out of the realm of morality and locate it in the world of history, to displace it from the framework of philosophy and move it to the context of culture.In this essay, I will analyze the exercise of censorship in Algeria in... (shrink)

William James’s category of “first-hand religion” allows us to arrive at the religious from an internal and individual perspective, including in those activities and phenomena usually considered secular. B. B. King’s 1972 performance at Sing Sing Prison, documented by David Hoffman, brings both the prisoner audience and the performers to an “additional dimension” distinct from the hollowness of everyday (prison) life. In addition, the presence of this intense experience on the YouTube platform creates a fluid community of second-order (...) observers, bound not by any overarching belief but by observation of the experience itself. King’s performance is in the genre of blues music, which, in turn, has associations with African religious traditions. While the study of diverse religious traditions helps inform our understanding of the kinds of activities that might constitute the religious, this study takes individual experience as primary rather than as a manifestation of a particular tradition. (shrink)

A participatory rural appraisal inthree West African countries examined thepossibility for replacing chemical pesticidesto control locusts and grasshoppers with abiological control method based on anindigenous fungal pathogen. The fungus iscurrently being tested at different sites inthe Sahel and in the humid tropics of WestAfrica. Structured group interviews, individualdiscussions, and field visits, were used toobtain farmers' perceptions of locust andgrasshoppers as crop pests, their quantitativeestimation of crop losses, and theirwillingness to pay for locust control. Farmersas well as plant protection officers (...) generallyperceived locusts and grasshoppers as importantpests that cause significant damage. Farmerswere aware of some of the risks of the use ofchemical pesticides, but not of the potentialalternatives. The use of the fungus in anoil-formulation and standard Ultra Low Volume(ULV) equipment was demonstrated, and theresults discussed with farmers. Theirimpressions of biological control werefavorable, and they expressed an interest inusing the technology. Farmers' expressedwillingness to pay for locust control is small,but not negligible. Locusts and grasshoppersare very visible pests and thus amenable topressure from farmers to local administrators,as well as by farmers' relatives in the city onthe national government. Therefore, politicalpressure for locust control is strong, althoughnational governments spend little on it,depending mostly on foreign donors. Donors areincreasingly worried about the environmentaleffect of the large amounts of chemicalpesticides used on locust control, and arepushing for more benign alternatives. Theresults of the present survey indicate thatthere may be a potential market for abiopesticide against grasshoppers and locustson cash crops in the humid areas. The potentialmarket in the Sahel depends on a reduction ofcosts or a subsidy of its price. This subsidycould be justified by the expected reduction inenvironmental and health costs when replacingchemical pesticides. Since donors are thecurrent purchasers of chemical pesticides forthe Sahel, they would also be expected to beinvolved in the purchase of the biologicalproduct. (shrink)

We isolate two abstract determinacy theorems for games of length $\omega_1$ from work of Neeman and use them to conclude, from large-cardinal assumptions and an iterability hypothesis in the region of measurable Woodin cardinals thatif the Continuum Hypothesis holds, then all games of length $\omega_1$ which are provably $\Delta_1$ -definable from a universally Baire parameter are determined;all games of length $\omega_1$ with payoff constructible relative to the play are determined; andif the Continuum Hypothesis holds, then there is (...) a model of ${\mathsf{ZFC}}$ containing all reals in which all games of length $\omega_1$ definable from real and ordinal parameters are determined. (shrink)

Medical ethics committees are increasingly called on to assist doctors, patients, and families in resolving difficult ethics issues. Although committees are becoming more sophisticated in the substance of medical ethics, little attention has been given to the processes these committees use to facilitate decision-making. In 1990, the National Institute for Dispute Resolution in Washington, D.C., provided a planning grant from its Innovation Fund to the Institute of Public Law of the University of New Mexico School of Law to look (...) at what ethics committees can learn from facilitation and mediation techniques. The study's thesis was that, if adapted for use by medical ethics committees, facilitation and mediation techniques can be helpful to those bodies in case review consultations and in other internal committee processes. This article reports on that project. (shrink)

Cornel West is one of the nation's premier public intellectuals and one of the great prophetic voices of our era. Whether he is writing a scholarly book or an article for Newsweek, whether he is speaking of Emerson, Gramsci, or Marvin Gaye, his work radiates a passion that reflects the rich traditions he draws on and weaves togetherÑBaptist preaching, American transcendentalism, jazz, radical politics. This anthology reveals the dazzling range of West's work, from his explorations of ”Prophetic (...) Pragmatism” to his philosophizing on hip-hop.The Cornel West Reader traces the development of West's extraordinary career as academic, public intellectual, and activist. In his essays, articles, books, and interviews, West emerges as America's social conscience, urging attention to complicated issues of racial and economic justice, sexuality and gender, history and politics. This collection represents the best work of an always compelling, often controversial, and absolutely essential philosopher of the modern American experience. (shrink)

Taking Emerson as his starting point, Cornel West’s basic task in this ambitious enterprise is to chart the emergence, development, decline, and recent resurgence of American pragmatism. John Dewey is the central figure in West’s pantheon of pragmatists, but he treats as well such varied mid-century representatives of the tradition as Sidney Hook, C. Wright Mills, W. E. B. Du Bois, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Lionel Trilling. West’s "genealogy" is, ultimately, a very personal work, for it is imbued (...) throughout with the author’s conviction that a thorough reexamination of American pragmatism may help inspire and instruct contemporary efforts to remake and reform American society and culture. "West... may well be the pre-eminent African American intellectual of our generation."—The Nation "_The American Evasion of Philosophy_ is a highly intelligent and provocative book. Cornel West gives us illuminating readings of the political thought of Emerson and James; provides a penetrating critical assessment of Dewey, his central figure; and offers a brilliant interpretation—appreciative yet far from uncritical—of the contemporary philosopher and neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty.... What shines through, throughout the work, is West's firm commitment to a radical vision of a philosophic discourse as inextricably linked to cultural criticism and political engagement."—Paul S. Boyer, professor emeritus of history, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wisconsin Project on American Writers Frank Lentricchia, General Editor. (shrink)

BackgroundThe West African Ebola virus epidemic from 2014 to 2016 is unprecedented in its scale, surpassing all previous and subsequent Ebola outbreaks since 1976. This epidemic provoked a humanitarian emergency that extended to different spheres of life, making visible ethical challenges in addition to medical, economic, and social ones. The present article aims to identify and differentiate the scope of ethical issues associated with the Ebola epidemic.MethodsAn online media analysis was performed on articles published from March 2014 (...) to September 2015 in ten preselected academic journals (scientific press) and two online newspapers (lay press). Two methodological approaches were combined: a systematic literature search and a qualitative content analysis. An additional keyword search was conducted on the PubMed database for the period after the end of the Ebola epidemic (2016-2020) to obtain an overview of research dealing with medical ethics due to the epidemic and to compare these results with the identified ethical challenges.ResultsA total of 389 articles dealing with the subject fields “Ebola epidemic” and “ethics” were researched. For qualitative content analysis, the time span with the highest article density was selected and a total of 64 articles were included (15 scientific articles, 49 popular articles). Five core ethical challenges of the Ebola epidemic emerged: 1. Responsibility and Accountability, 2. Spillover Effects, 3. Research and Development, 4. Health Communication, and 5. Resource Allocation. Articles in academic journals were dominated by the discussion of normative aspects in the area of “research and development”, while newspaper articles focused on aspects of “responsibility and accountability”.ConclusionAn ethical discussion of the Ebola epidemic requires an examination of as many of the ethical dimensions involved as possible. The presented investigation of the two types of media with regard to the Ebola epidemic offers this possibility of a more comprehensive insight into this diversity as a basis for ethical discussions. (shrink)

Stereological techniques allow biologists to create quantitative, three-dimensional descriptions of biological structures from two- dimensional images of tissue viewed under the microscope. For example, they can accurately estimate the size of a particular organelle, the total length of a mass of capillaries, or the number of neurons or synapses in a particular region of the brain. This book provides a practical guide to designing and critically evaluating stereological studies of the nervous system and other tissues. It explains the basic (...) concepts behind design-based stereology and how to get started. Also included are detailed descriptions of how to prepare tissue appropriately, perform pilot studies and decide on the appropriate sampling strategy, and account for phenomena such as tissue shrinkage. Numerous examples of applications of stereological methods that are applicable to studies of the central system and a wide variety of other tissues are explained. The book is therefore essential reading for neurobiologists and cell biologists interested in generating accurate representations of cell and tissue architecture. (shrink)

Community engagement in research, including public health related research, is acknowledged as an ethical imperative. While medical care and public health action take priority over research during infectious disease outbreaks, research is still required in order to learn from epidemic responses. The World Health Organisation developed a guide for community engagement during infectious disease epidemics called the Good Participatory Practice for Trials of Emerging (and Re‐emerging) Pathogens that are Likely to Cause Severe Outbreaks in the Near Future and for (...) which Few or No Medical Counter‐Measures Exist (GPP‐EP). This paper identified priorities for community engagement for research conducted during infectious disease outbreaks drawing on discussions held with a purposive sample of bioethicists, social scientists, researchers, policy makers and laypersons who work with ethics committees in West Africa. These perspectives were considered in the light of the GPP‐EP, which adds further depth and dimension to discussions on community engagement frameworks. It concludes that there is no presumptive justification for the exclusion of communities in the design, implementation and monitoring of clinical trials conducted during an infectious disease outbreak. Engagement that facilitates collaboration rather than partnership between researchers and the community during epidemics is acceptable. (shrink)

If, as many suppose, pornography changes people, a question arises as to how.1 One answer to this question offers a grand and noble vision. Inspired by the idea that pornography is speech, and inspired by a certain liberal ideal about the point of speech in political life, some theorists say that pornography contributes to that liberal ideal: pornography, even at its most violent and misogynistic, and even at its most harmful, is political speech that aims to express certain views about (...) the good life, 2aims to persuade its consumers of a certain political point of view—and to some extent succeeds in persuading them. Ronald Dworkin suggests that the pornographer contributes to the ‘moral environment, by expressing his political or social convictions or tastes or prejudices informally’, that pornography ‘seeks to deliver’ a ‘message’ , that it reflects the ‘opinion’ that ‘women are submissive, or enjoy being dominated, or should be treated as if they did’, that it is comparable to speech ‘advocating that women occupy inferior roles’.3 Pornography on this view is political speech that aims to persuade its listeners of the truth of certain ideas about women, and of course ‘the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas’.4 Another answer offers a vision that is not grand and noble, but thoroughly reductive. Pornography is not politically persuasive speech, but speech that works by a process of psychological conditioning. This view seems common enough in the social science literature. Consider, for example, this description of an early experiment, from a time that pre-dates contemporary political debate. (shrink)

Showcasing American music and music making during the Great Depression, Hard Luck Blues presents more than two hundred photographs created by the New Deal's Farm Security Administration photography program. With an appreciation for the amateur and the local, FSA photographers depicted a range of musicians sharing the regular music of everyday life, from informal songs in migrant work camps, farmers' homes, barn dances, and on street corners to organized performances at church revivals, dance halls, and community (...) festivals. Captured across the nation from the northeast to the southwest, the images document the last generation of musicians who learned to play without the influence of recorded sound, as well as some of the pioneers of Chicago's R & B scene and the first years of amplified instruments. The best visual representation of American roots music performance during the Depression era, Hard Luck Blues features photographs by Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Marion Post Wolcott, and others. Photographer and image researcher Rich Remsberg breathes life into the images by providing contextual details about the persons and events captured, in some cases drawing on interviews with the photographers' subjects. Also included are a foreword by author Nicholas Dawidoff and an afterword by music historian Henry Sapoznik. Published in association with the Library of Congress. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how Peirce’s core definition of Index extends even to Objects which do not co-occur in space and time with their referent. Although the arguments are philosophical in nature, they are supported by developmental and empirical findings. The case of absent Objects as constituting Objects of indexical use is the primary focus; and rationale is offered from Peirce’s early and later work to bolster this claim. The analysis proffers the bold assertion that Index, especially in its Degenerate (...) use without an Interpretant, qualifies as the most primary sign vehicle, and that Index to absent Objects determines whether indexical use is Degenerate or Genuine. (shrink)

Much research in the last two decades has demonstrated that human responses deviate from the performance deemed normative according to various models of decision making and rational judgment (e.g., the basic axioms of utility theory). This gap between the normative and the descriptive can be interpreted as indicating systematic irrationalities in human cognition. However, four alternative interpretations preserve the assumption that human behavior and cognition is largely rational. These posit that the gap is due to (1) performance errors, (2) (...) computational limitations, (3) the wrong norm being applied by the experimenter, and (4) a different construal of the task by the subject. In the debates about the viability of these alternative explanations, attention has been focused too narrowly on the modal response. In a series of experiments involving most of the classic tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, we have examined the implications of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap. Performance errors are a minor factor in the gap; computational limitations underlie non-normative responding on several tasks, particularly those that involve some type of cognitive decontextualization. Unexpected patterns of covariance can suggest when the wrong norm is being applied to a task or when an alternative construal of the task should be considered appropriate. Key Words: biases; descriptive models; heuristics; individual differences; normative models; rationality; reasoning. (shrink)

Web scraping involves using computer programs for automated extraction and organization of data from the Web for the purpose of further data analysis and use. It is frequently used by commercial companies, but also has become a valuable tool in epidemiological research and public health planning. In this paper, we explore ethical issues in a project that “scrapes” public websites of U.S. county jails as part of an effort to develop a comprehensive database to enhance HIV surveillance and improve (...) continuity of care for incarcerated populations. We argue that the well-known framework of Emanuel et al. provides only partial ethical guidance for the activities we describe, which lie at a complex intersection of public health research and public health practice. We suggest some ethical considerations from the ethics of public health practice to help fill gaps in this relatively unexplored area. (shrink)

From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. The former head of the Sante Fe Institute, visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term "complexity" can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is (...) that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by issues of aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science, creating a new understanding of energy use and metabolism: West found that despite the riotous diversity in the sizes of mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal's circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient--and lives 25% longer. This speaks to everything from how long we can expect to live to how many hours of sleep we need. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism's body. (shrink)

This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who picked up the baton from classical scholars, principally Aristotle. Most prominent among the pragmatists thereafter is Charles Sanders Peirce. In our vernacular, habit connotes a pattern of conduct. Nonetheless, Peirce’s concept transcends application to mere regularity or to human conduct; it extends into natural and social phenomena, making cohesive inner and outer worlds. Chapters (...) in this anthology define and amplify Peircean habit; as such, they highlight the dialectic between doubt and belief. Doubt destabilizes habit, leaving open the possibility for new beliefs in the form of habit-change; and without habit-change, the regularity would fall short of habit – conforming to automatic/mechanistic systems. This treatment of habit showcases how, through human agency, innovative regularities of behavior and thought advance the process of making the unconscious conscious. The latter materializes when affordances form the basis for modifications in action schemas and modes of reasoning. Further, the book charts how indexical signs in language and action are pivotal in establishing attentional patterns; and how these habits accommodate novel orientations within event templates. It is intended for those interested in Peirce’s metaphysic or semiotic, including both senior scholars and students of philosophy and religion, psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as mathematics, and the natural sciences. (shrink)

The history of computers is embedded in military research and training. Its increased role in education to access and exchange information, and to connect teachers, parents, and community, has not diminished its potential for military or industrial intelligence. Therefore, computers have deep political, social, and cultural implications for countries with no control over software and hardware production. In francophone West Africa, computer adoption is very slow. This article establishes the extent to which computers are used in education and (...) research and critically examines some of the challenges their adoption poses. Drawing arguments from cultural critics concerned with the quality of our lives, it argues that the present slow pace of their adoption may be more of a blessing than a disadvantage if they cannot promote diverse literacies, indigenous forms of knowledge, and local cultures, and if they cannot help break the scientific isolation of those countries. (shrink)

South Africa’s principal corporate governance report aspires to an ‘inclusive’ approach to corporate governance, in which companies are clearly advised to consider the interests of a variety of stakeholders. Yet, in common with many other countries, there is little discussion of the theoretical foundations and assumptions implicit in the recommended approach to corporate governance. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of corporate governance and the corporate environment in South Africa in terms of existing theory (...) and models of corporate governance, and to provide a critique based on a consideration of traditional African values and the socio-economic necessities of post-apartheid South Africa. The result is the identification of an incompatibility between the current corporate environment in South Africa and the given exposition of African values. Some prospects for change are then identified. (shrink)

In the controversy over the date of Corinna, the following points may be taken as agreed: 1. An edition was made in Boeotia about the end of the third or beginning of the second century B.C. 2. The texts of Corinna current in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods were all descended from that Boeotian edition. 3. Before its dissemination, Corinna was unknown in Greece at large. If she wrote at an earlier period, she must have been remembered only (...) locally. The difference between Boeotian spelling of the fifth century and that of the fourth is very great: but the difference in this respect between the mid-fourth century and the late third or early second is comparatively slight. It is therefore tenable that whereas there would be a good reason for the re-spelling of fifth-century Boeotian into the later convention of any period, there would be no obvious or adequate reason for re-spelling Boeotian of the fourth century into the orthography of the third, or that of the third into that of the second. Even those features of fourth-century spelling which have ceased to preponderate are by no means unknown or even uncommon at the end of the third century. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on Berkeley's reasons for accepting the ‘resemblance thesis’ which entails that for one thing to represent another those two things must resemble one another. The resemblance thesis is a crucial premise in Berkeley's argument from the ‘likeness principle’ in §8 of the Principles. Yet, like the ‘likeness principle’, the resemblance thesis remains unargued for and is never explicitly defended. This has led several commentators to provide explanations as to why Berkeley accepts the resemblance thesis (...) and why he also takes his opponents to do so too. We provide a contextual answer to this question, focusing on epistemological discussions concerning resemblance and representation in Early Modern Irish Philosophy. We argue that the resemblance thesis is implicit in early responses to William Molyneux's famous example of the ‘man born blind made to see’ and trace the ‘Molyneux man’ thought experiment as it is employed by Irish thinkers such as William King and Berkeley himself. Ultimately, we conclude that Berkeley's acceptance of the resemblance thesis can be explained by the Irish intellectual climate in which he was writing. (shrink)

The Term ‘liberty’ invokes such universal respect that most modern political economists and moralists endeavour to find a conspicuous place for it somewhere in their systems or prescriptions. But in view of the innumerable senses of this term an insistence on some kind of definition prior to any discussion seems to be justified. For our present purposes attention to two particularly conflicting interpretations will be sufficient. These are sometimes called the ‘negative’ and the ‘positive’ notions of Liberty. According to the (...) ‘negative’ notion, my own liberty implies the reduction to a minimum of the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which I wish to act. Conversely the absence of liberty, or coercion, is regarded as undesirable because it amounts to the prevention by other persons of my doing what I want. On the other hand, the ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ consists in the attainment of self-mastery, or, in other words, the release from the domination of ‘adverse’ influences. This ‘slavery’ from which men ‘liberate’ themselves is variously described to include slavery to ‘nature’, to ‘unbridled passions’, to ‘irrational impulses’, or simply slavery to one's ‘lower nature’. ‘Positive’ liberty is then identified with ‘self-realisation’ or an awakening into a conscious state of rationality. The fact that it is contended that such a state can often be attained only by the interference of other ‘rational’ persons who ‘liberate’ their fellow beings from their ‘irrationality’, brings this interpretation of liberty into open and striking conflict with liberty in the ‘negative’ sense. (shrink)

South Africa's principal corporate governance report aspires to an 'inclusive' approach to corporate governance, in which companies are clearly advised to consider the interests of a variety of stakeholders. Yet, in common with many other countries, there is little discussion of the theoretical foundations and assumptions implicit in the recommended approach to corporate governance. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of corporate governance and the corporate environment in South Africa in terms of existing theory (...) and models of corporate governance, and to provide a critique based on a consideration of traditional African values and the socio-economic necessities of post-apartheid South Africa. The result is the identification of an incompatibility between the current corporate environment in South Africa and the given exposition of African values. Some prospects for change are then identified. (shrink)

In the near future, vehicles will gradually gain more autonomous functionalities. Drivers’ activity will be less about driving than about monitoring intelligent systems to which driving action will be delegated. Road safety, therefore, remains dependent on the human factor and we should identify the limits beyond which driver’s functional state (DFS) may no longer be able to ensure safety. Depending on the level of automation, estimating the DFS may have different targets, e.g. assessing driver’s situation awareness in lower levels of (...) automation and his ability to respond to emerging hazard or assessing driver’s ability to monitor the vehicle performing operational tasks in higher levels of automation. Unfitted DFS (e.g., drowsiness) may impact the driver ability respond to taking over abilities. This paper reviews the most appropriate psychophysiological indices in naturalistic driving while considering the DFS through exogenous sensors, providing the more efficient trade-off between reliability and intrusiveness. The DFS also originates from kinematic data of the vehicle, thus providing information that indirectly relates to drivers behaviour. The whole data should be synchronously processed, providing a diagnosis on the DFS, and bringing it to the attention of the decision maker in real time. Next, making the information available can be permanent or intermittent (or even undelivered), and may also depend on the automation level. Such interface can include recommendations for decision support or simply give neutral instruction. Mapping of relevant psychophysiological and behavioural indicators for DFS will enable practitioners and researchers provide reliable estimates, fitted to the level of automation. (shrink)