Este ensayo presenta algunas consideraciones acerca del proceso de investigación en ciencias sociales, con especial énfasis en el análisis de datos. En particular, presentamos algunos aspectos del proceso de construcción de las categorías de análisis. El ensayo forma parte del programa “Lenguaje..

Ioannis Spatharakis has produced a book about the iconography of seventy-three painted churches of Crete. Given the lack of an exhaustive photographic publication of the Byzantine wall paintings of the island and the relatively few monographs on individual churches, in the past forty years scholars have attempted to compile synthetic works with mixed results. Three other volumes have dealt with Cretan frescoes prior to Spatharakis's book reviewed here: K. D. Kalokyris, The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (New York, 1973); Manfred (...) Bissinger, Kreta. Byzantinische Wandmalerei. Münchener Arbeiten zur Kunstgeschichte und Archäologie 4 (Munich, 1996); and to a lesser degree Klaus Gallas, Klaus Wessel, and Manolis Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta. Studium und Reise. (Munich, 1983) which is a learned, comprehensive travel guide. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social (...) misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.

Relativism has been, in its various guises, both one of the most popular and most reviled philosophical doctrines of our time. Defenders see it as a harbinger of tolerance and the only ethical and epistemic stance worthy of the open-minded and tolerant. Detractors dismiss it for its alleged incoherence and uncritical intellectual permissiveness. Debates about relativism permeate the whole spectrum of philosophical sub-disciplines. From ethics to epistemology, science to religion, political theory to ontology, theories of meaning and even logic, philosophy (...) has felt the need to respond to this heady and seemingly subversive idea. Discussions of relativism often also invoke considerations relevant to the very nature and methodology of philosophy and to the division between the so-called “analytic and continental” camps in philosophy. And yet, despite a long history of debate going back to Plato and an increasingly large body of writing, it is still difficult to come to an agreed definition of what, at its core, relativism is, and what philosophical import it has. This entry attempts to provide a broad account of the many ways in which “relativism” has been defined, explained, defended and criticized. (shrink)

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

This paper gives an account of the differences between polar and alternative questions, as well as an account of the division of labor between compositional semantics and pragmatics in interpreting these types of questions. Alternative questions involve a strong exhaustivity presupposition for the mentioned alternatives. We derive this compositionally from the meaning of the final falling tone and its interaction with the pragmatics of questioning in discourse. Alternative questions are exhaustive in two ways: they exhaust the space of epistemic possibilities, (...) as well as the space of discourse possibilities (the Question Under Discussion). In contrast, we propose that polar questions are the opposite: they present just one alternative that is necessarily non-exhaustive. The account explains a range of response patterns to alternative and polar questions, as well as differences and similarities between the two types of questions. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the responsibility of AI experts for guiding the development of AI in a desirable direction. More specifically, the aim is to answer the following research question: To what extent are AI experts responsible in a forward-looking way for effects of AI technology that go beyond the immediate concerns of the programmer or designer? AI experts, in this paper conceptualised as experts regarding the technological aspects of AI, have knowledge and control of AI (...) technology that non-experts do not have. Drawing on responsibility theory, theories of the policy process, and critical algorithm studies, we discuss to what extent this capacity, and the positions that these experts have to influence the AI development, make AI experts responsible in a forward-looking sense for consequences of the use of AI technology. We conclude that, as a professional collective, AI experts, to some extent, are responsible in a forward-looking sense for consequences of use of AI technology that they could foresee, but with the risk of increased influence of AI experts at the expense of other actors. It is crucial that a diversity of actors is included in democratic processes on the future development of AI, but for this to be meaningful, AI experts need to take responsibility for how the AI technology they develop affects public deliberation. (shrink)

The article deals with the interpretation of propositional attitudes in the framework of modal predicate logic. The first part discusses the classical puzzles arising from the interplay between propositional attitudes, quantifiers and the notion of identity. After comparing different reactions to these puzzles it argues in favor of an analysis in which evaluations of de re attitudes may vary relative to the ways of identifying objects used in the context of use. The second part of the article gives this analysis (...) a precise formalization from a model-and proof-theoretic perspective. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to argue for a position holding that epigenetic responsibility primarily should be a political and not an individual responsibility. Epigenetic is a rapidly growing research field studying regulations of gene expression that do not change the DNA sequence. Knowledge about these mechanisms is still uncertain in many respects, but main presumptions are that they are triggered by environmental factors and life style and, to a certain extent, heritable to subsequent generations, thereby reminding of aspects (...) of Lamarckism. Epigenetic research advances give rise to intriguing challenges for responsibility relations between the society and the individual. Responsibility is commonly understood in a backwards-looking manner, identifying causally responsible actors to blame for a bad outcome. If only a backwards-looking responsibility model is applied, epigenetics might give rise to arduous responsibility ascriptions to individuals for their health and the health of their future descendants. This would put heavy responsibility burdens on actors constrained by unequal social and economic structures. In contrast, a forward-looking responsibility notion takes account of structural conditions and pay attention to who is best placed to do something about conditions contributing to bad outcomes. A forward-looking responsibility notion would partly free disadvantaged individuals from responsibility, and identify actors with power and capacity to do something about structural factors constraining genuine choice. (shrink)

The main aim of the present research is to analyze the predictive value of individual characteristics such as online self-efficacy, adaptability to uncertainty, and sources of stress during online learning on learning engagement. We also aimed to highlight if these relationships could be mediated by the online self-regulated learning strategies, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were 529 university students and the design was cross-sectional. The results showed significant associations of the sources of stress in online learning with self-efficacy, leaning (...) engagement and self-regulated learning strategies. Self-regulated strategies—task strategies and goal setting represent mediators of stressors perceived by the students under the conditions of the sudden shift to online activity and online learning engagement. The most relevant self-regulation strategies seemed to be goal setting and task strategies, which confirm the need for a clear structure of learning in the context of online activities. The implications of this study reside in the increased awareness regarding how learning engagement in online learning can be predicted by individual characteristics. (shrink)

This special focus issue brings to the Journal of Religious Ethics fresh considerations of moral anthropology as practiced by four emergent voices within the field. Each of these essays, in varying ways, seeks not only to advance an understanding of ethics in a particular time, place, and context, but to draw our attention to shared aspects of the human condition: its discontinuities and fractures, its practices of perception and attention, its interplays of emotion, intuition, and reason, and its thoroughly intersubjective (...) nature. To learn something of Thai Buddhist life-worlds, contemporary Russian modes of being, or the experience of immorality in today's China, each essay argues in turn, is to gain new insight into ourselves. (shrink)

This article examines the development of a gender mainstreaming strategy in the EU by illustrating how this strategy was shaped by other than gender equality policy goals. Gender mainstreaming was originally launched in 1996 to promote gender equality in all EU policies, in the context of international and European mobilization on women’s issues. It was aimed to transform mainstream policies by introducing a gender equality perspective. However, it has been largely used as an alibi for neutralizing positive action. The successful (...) implementation of positive action in political decision-making had challenged the gender distribution of political power over policy institutions and technical, human and financial resources. This led to policy softening and institutional weakening due to counteracting by the EU political and administrative hierarchies. The argument is based on text analyses of relevant Community acts and on direct observations of the policy process, based on personal working experiences in the European Commission. (shrink)

Generalized Quantifier Theory defines superlative quantifiers at most n and at least n as truth-conditionally equivalent to comparative quantifiers fewer than n+1 and more than n \1. It has been demonstrated, however, that this standard theory cannot account for various linguistic differences between these two types of quantifiers. In this paper I discuss how the distinction between assertibility and truth-conditions can be applied to explain this phenomenon. I draw a parallel between the assertibility of disjunctions and superlative quantifiers, and argue (...) that those assertibility conditions are essentially modal. I use epistemic logic to formalize the assertibility conditions and revisit some of the linguistic puzzles related to superlative quantification. (shrink)

We explored the home learning environments of 173 Mexican preschool children in relation to their numeracy performance. Parents indicated the frequency of their formal home numeracy and literacy activities, and their academic expectations for children’s numeracy and literacy performance. Children completed measures of early numeracy skills. Mexican parent–child dyads from families with either high- or low-socioeconomic status participated. Low-SES parents reported higher numeracy expectations than high-SES parents, but similar frequency of home numeracy activities. In contrast, high-SES parents reported higher frequency (...) of literacy activities. Path analyses showed that operational numeracy activities were positively related to children’s numeracy skills in the high- but not in the low-SES group. These findings improve the understanding of the role of the home environment in different contexts and provide some insights into the sources of the variable patterns of relations between home learning activities and children’s numeracy outcomes. They also suggest that SES is a critical factor to consider in research on children’s home numeracy experiences. (shrink)

This article examines Sanskrit and Pali conceptions of contempt, and explores how they work in a number of ancient Indian genres, with a sustained focus on the Rāmāyaṇa. The article argues that while Indian texts often analyze emotion words and concepts systematically and with intricate granularity, contempt was not seen as an interior state to be theorized or managed therapeutically or morally. Rather, words for contempt are used to describe behaviors, etiquette, and social relationships, and are principally concerned with stipulating (...) social status. (shrink)

In South Asia, the period between 1100 and 1300 CE was a particularly prolific time for theorists from India's three main indigenous religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism - to articulate their views on the face-to-face gift encounter. Their gift theories shaped a cosmopolitan sensibility that shared ethical and aesthetic values that reached across regional, sectarian, and religious boundaries. This book explores the ethical and social implications of unilateral gifts of esteem, offering a perceptive guide to the uniquely South Asian (...) contributors to theoretical work on the gift. (shrink)

Drawing on a rich variety of Indian texts across multiple traditions, including Vedanta, Buddhist, Yoga and Jain, this collection explores how emotional experience is framed, evoked and theorized in order to offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of leading Indian philosophers showcase the unique literary texture, philosophical reflections and theoretical paradigms that classical Indian sources provide in their own right. From solitude in the Saundarananda and psychosomatic theories of (...) disease in the Yogavasistha to female lament in Greek, Sinhala Buddhist and Sanskrit epic tales, their chapters reveal the range and diversity of the phenomena encompassing the English term 'emotion'. In doing so, they contribute towards a more cosmopolitan, comparative and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the field beyond the Western tradition. (shrink)

Thus one should define, in a double way, name and form in all phenomena of the three realms. …In this essay, we want to bring together two issues for their mutual illumination: the particular use of that hoary Indian dyad, "nāma-rūpa," literally, "name-and-form," by Buddhaghosa, the influential fifth-century Theravāda writer, to organize the categories of the abhidhamma, the canonical classification of phenomenal factors and their formulaic ordering;1 and an interpretation of phenomenology as a methodology. We argue that Buddhaghosa does not (...) use abhidhamma as a reductive ontological division of the human being into mind and body, but rather as the contemplative structuring of human phenomenology.... (shrink)

Mirror neuron research has come a long way since the early 1990s, and many theorists are now stressing the heterogeneity and complexity of the sensorimotor properties of fronto-parietal circuits. However, core aspects of the initial ‘ mirror mechanism ’ theory, i.e. the idea of a symmetric encapsulated mirroring function translating sensory action perceptions into motor formats, still appears to be shaping much of the debate. This article challenges the empirical plausibility of the sensorimotor segregation implicit in the original mirror metaphor. (...) It is proposed instead that the teleological organization found in the broader fronto-parietal circuits might be inherently sensorimotor. Thus the idea of an independent ‘purely perceptual’ goal understanding process is questioned. Further, it is hypothesized that the often asymmetric, heterogeneous and contextually modulated mirror and canonical neurons support a function of multisensory mapping and tracking of the perceiving agents affordance space. Such a shift in the interpretative framework offers a different theoretical handle on how sensorimotor processes might ground various aspects of intentional action choice and social cognition. Mirror neurons would under the proposed “social affordance model” be seen as dynamic parts of larger circuits, which support tracking of currently shared and competing action possibilities. These circuits support action selection processes—but also our understanding of the options and action potentials that we and perhaps others have in the affordance space. In terms of social cognition ‘ mirror ’ circuits might thus help us understand not only the intentional actions others are actually performing—but also what they could have done, did not do and might do shortly. (shrink)

Author: Werner Maria TITLE: EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS OF HIPPOLYTE TAINE’S THEORY OF ART (Teoriopoznawcze i metodologiczne podstawy filozofii sztuki Hipolita Taine’a) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2006, vol:.6, number: 2006/1, pages: 223-237 Keywords: TAINE, THEORY OF ART, METHODOLOGY, POSITIVIST PHILOSOPHERS Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail:Taine postulates that the status of the humanities should be equal with that of the sciences. The claim is based on a conviction, shared by other positivist philosophers, (...) that both kinds of knowledge should share the same methodology. Thus, all knowledge turns out to be a collection of facts and relations among them. The facts are subordinate to some major facts being their “causes” or “principal features”. The task of a work of art is to extract such facts. The emergence of the characteristic feature of a phenomenon allows us to describe a work as a perfect one. The value of the work depends on the kind of a characteristic feature, being more or less universal. (shrink)

Author: Werner Maria Title: VICTOR BASCH’S INTERPRETATION OF KANTIAN THEORY OF THE SUBLIME (Victora Bascha interpretacja Kantowskiej teorii wzniosłości) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2005, vol:.5, number: 2005/1, pages: 189-201 Keywords: BASCH, KANT, THEORY OF THE SUBLIME Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The article shows the critical analysis of the analytics of the sublime from Kant’s Critique of Judgment, presented by V. Basch. In his work Essai critique sur l’esthetique de Kant Basch (...) tries to prove Kantian division between the mathematical and dynamically sublime superfluous. In his interpretation of the problem also other aspects of Kant’s theory of the sublime (such as referring to the idea of the infinity and his description of the process of ‘grasping and uniting’ in the experience of mathematical sublime) are needless. On the grounds of his criticism Basch gives his own theory of the sublime. According to it the very nature is sublime, and the glorification of human nature is given not in calling to the ideas of reason, but in the uniting with nature. (shrink)

This article sets out to assess the opportunities and risks for the advancement of gender equality in the European Union offered by the establishment of the European Institute for Gender Equality. It argues that the formal aims and objectives of the Institute mirror the wider political context today ; for the same reason, however, the Institute may be hard-pressed to fulfil those functions originally envisaged by a specific but broad range of actors in the field of equal opportunities. Whether or (...) not the Institute will be able to live up to the challenge will depend in large part on its ability to link with the gender studies research community and to forge critical political alliances with other strategic feminist actors. (shrink)

The present study examined differences in moral behavior and judgment in sport and student life. Participants were students at a British university who responded to moral dilemmas pertaining to sport and student life. They indicated the likelihood that they would act antisocially or prosocially and provided judgment ratings of the behaviors described in the dilemmas. Likelihood to act antisocially was higher toward opponents in sport than other students at university, whereas likelihood to behave prosocially was lower toward opponents in sport (...) than other students at university. Finally, antisocial behavior was less likely toward teammates than other students. The sport–university difference in antisocial opponent/student behavior was fully mediated by moral judgment, whereas the difference in prosocial behavior was partially mediated by moral judgment. These findings reveal a more nuanced aspect to bracketed morality that considers in-group loyalty when understanding moral judgment and behavior in and outside of the sport context. (shrink)

While sustainability is largely associated with do-gooders, this article discusses whether and how fraud might also be an issue in sustainability departments. More specifically, transferring the concept of the fraud triangle to sustainability departments I discuss possible pressures/incentives, opportunities, and rationalizations/attitudes for sustainability managers to commit fraud. Based on interviews with sustainability and forensic practitioners, my findings suggest that sustainability managers face mounting pressure and have opportunities to manipulate due to an immature control environment. Whether a presumably morality-driven attitude may (...) prevent them from committing and easily rationalizing fraud remains controversial. Even though cases of fraud happening in sustainability departments are still widely unknown, the interview analysis reveals that sustainability fraud is likely to occur at least to some extent—and presumably remains undetected. The study brings to light the importance of a clear commitment from executives to sustainability to prevent sustainability fraud and demonstrates adverse developments driven by external stakeholders, specifically the bonus relevancy of sustainability index scores. In particular, the study shows a lack of awareness for potential fraud in sustainability departments. (shrink)

The problem of developing research and innovation in accordance with society’s general needs and values has received increasing attention in research policy. In the last 7 years, the concept of “Responsible Research and Innovation” has gained prominence in this regard, along with the resulting question of how best to integrate awareness about science–society relations into daily practices in research and higher education. In this context, post-graduate training has been seen as a promising entrance point, but tool-kit approaches more frequently have (...) been used. In this paper, we present and analyze an experiment—in the format of a Ph.D. course for early-career researchers—deploying an alternative approach. Drawing on Argyris and Schön’s framing of reflective practice, and their distinctions between espoused theories and theories-in-use, the analyzed course endeavored to stimulate double-loop learning. Focusing on dislocatory moments, this paper analyses how the course tried to teach participants to reflect upon their own practices, values, and ontologies, and whether this provided them with the resources necessary to reflect on their theories-in-use in their daily practices. (shrink)

Can Confucian ethics contribute to diagnosing the root causes of video games’ toxicity and formulating design requirements for redressing it? Contemporary Confucian studies on technology have not addressed these questions, although video games have become an important part of contemporary human life. This paper advances Confucian-inspired ethical studies on technologies by bringing attention to the moral dimension of this underexamined aspect of contemporary life. By focusing on League of Legends (one of the most popular toxic online multiplayer games), we argue (...) that League’s toxic environment hinders the cultivation of ren (仁), shu (恕), and he (和), but Confucian conceptual resources can inspire the formulation of at least three design recommendations against League’s toxicity. The first is to eliminate killing in the game by banking on players’ desire to express their skillfulness. The second is to include a rewatching feature to sanction toxic players with the aim of inculcating sympathy in them. The last is to add a procedure before and after each match, where players can cordially interact with each other and develop mutual respect. (shrink)

The spirit of modern utopia was to state the primacy of planning on the reparation, conservation, and reformation of reality and the view that we should destroy what already exists and start again from the beginning in order to build something rational and good. In this paper Maria Moneti sketches out some aspect of the history of utopian thought from the modern rationalism to its decline in the contemporary age. The ‘bankruptcy’ of utopia as philosophical and literary genre has swept (...) away also the need to imagine the ‘ideal city’. At the end of this path, a first balance seems to suggest a post-modern utopia which nourishes more modest ambitions than its modern version and aims at keeping and respecting the world where we live. (shrink)

The genome of two completely unrelated individuals is quite similar apart from minor variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms which contribute to the uniqueness of each and every person. These single nucleotide polymorphisms are of great interest clinically as they are useful in figuring out the susceptibility of certain individuals to particular diseases and for recognizing varied responses to pharmacological interventions. This gives rise to the idea of ‘personalized medicine’ as an exciting new therapeutic science in this genomic era. Personalized medicine (...) suggests a unique treatment strategy based on an individual’s genetic make-up. Its key principles revolve around applied pharmaco-genomics, pharmaco-kinetics and pharmaco-proteomics. Herein, the ethical and legal aspects of personalized medicine in a new genomic era are briefly addressed. The ultimate goal is to comprehensively recognize all relevant forms of genetic variation in each individual and be able to interpret this information in a clinically meaningful manner within the ambit of ethical and legal considerations. The authors of this article firmly believe that personalized medicine has the potential to revolutionize the current landscape of medicine as it makes its way into clinical practice. (shrink)

Heim responds to the five articles by anthropologists concerned with contemporary Buddhist practices and ideologies of emotions, arguing that a history of emotions approach that attends to the centrality of emotions and their evaluations can be important for ethics. She submits that while sometimes studies of moral psychology in Buddhist ethics have focused on individuals, these articles suggest how emotions can have a very public and collective impact on social, economic, and political life. She is also interested in how these (...) anthropological studies of contemporary Buddhist communities trouble textual accounts of Buddhist ethics on central questions of giving, karma, merit, and compassion. (shrink)

La idea de convergencia es una de las nociones más difundidas en el lenguaje tecnocientífico actual. Sin olvidar el éxito que está teniendo en el diseño de la política europea, no cabe duda de que es un concepto clave en la financiación de las investigaciones integradas en el marco de lo que se ha denominado las NBCI (nano-bio-cogno-info-tecnologías). Con ello, pretendemos analizar hasta qué punto se está difundiendo algún sesgo axiológico a través de esta noción. Algo que cobra especial interés (...) si tenemos en cuenta la acogida que está teniendo en los recientes estudios sobre el nuevo modo de producción del conocimiento tecnocientífico (Gibbons, Nowotny, Funtowicz…) y el giro económico que estos han experimentado en los últimos años. (shrink)

Dans son commentaire des Sentences (d. 24, lib. I), le théologien séculier Henri de Harclay (ca. 1270-1317) aborde le problème de l’ontologie du nombre. Il soutient la thèse conceptualiste : les nombres n’existent pas indépendamment de l’activité de l’intellect. D’une part, son argumentation est utilisée chez Pierre Auriol qui défend une opinion semblable ; d’autre part, elle est attaquée chez Thomas Wylton qui adhère à une théorie contraire, celle de l’existence extramentale des nombres. Une édition critique annotée du texte d’Henri (...) de Harclay est présentée ici pour la première fois. (shrink)

This research presents an analysis of the learning strategies employed by students during confinement due to Covid-19 in the year 2021. The study sample consisted of 200 students from the Licenciado Benito Juárez García high school of the morning shift of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. A survey was applied to measure the degree of satisfaction in relation to their use and impact on the acquisition of knowledge, allowing them to be more self-taught.The results show that the hypothesis was (...) partially fulfilled, since practice and organization are the learning strategies that most supported them in learning. (shrink)

Examinarei aqui dois textos políticos de Sade que propõem um procedimento a ser instituído na elaboração das leis de tal modo que se possa efetivamente fazer da lei a expressão da soberania popular, como queria a constituição republicana francesa de 1793. Os textos em questão são a Adresse au roi des français, de 1791, antes da proclamação da constituição daquele mesmo ano, e Idée sur le mode de la sanction des lois, de novembro de 1792, e que, portanto, precede a (...) constituição republicana de 1793. (shrink)

RESUMEN El concepto heterotopía, definido por Michel Foucault como espacio otro, es retomado en este artículo, desde un enfoque crítico, para analizar los procesos de construcción, gestión y puesta en marcha del Museo Itinerante de la Memoria y la Identidad de Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo. Bajo la premisa de que el desarrollo de los procesos de memorialización debe atenderse más allá del cumplimiento normativo por parte del Estado, puesto que estas prácticas de memoria territoriales en El Mochuelo (...) subvierten el estatismo y la homogeneidad con los cuales se instauran las verdades oficiales. ABSTRACT Heterotopia concept, defined by Michel Foucault as another space, is taken up in this article to analyze the processes of construction, management, and implementation of the Museo Itinerante de la Memoria y la Identidad de Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo (Itinerant Museum of Memory and Identity of Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo). Under the premise that the development of memorialization processes must be addressed beyond regulatory compliance by the State since these territorial memory practices in El Mochuelo subvert the statism and homogeneity with which official truths are established. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Circumcision and Regrets from the Mother of Three SonsMaría Viola SánchezI am a psychologist and a radio talk show host for 25+ years. Both of my parents spoke English as their second language. I was raised by immigrants who demanded that "we speak English because we are Americans." I have four adult children, three sons, and a daughter.I gave birth to my children in the mid-80s. They are very (...) close in age and remain dear friends to this day. While I was a professional with a career when my children were born, I took a leave to work part-time and largely, to be a stay-at-home mother for nearly ten years. I was very involved with all their academic and extracurricular activities. I became a single mother when they were 2, 4, 6, and 7 years old, which served to redouble my parenting efforts to compensate for the absence of their father.My dirty secret is that I circumcised my three sons. I did so out of sheer ignorance. I am ashamed and deeply saddened by my decision at the time of their births. This is a burden that I will live with for the rest of my life. Something that I took away from them and that I can never repair.Here's the justification for my ill-informed decision. My father was circumcised, my two brothers were circumcised, and my then-husband was circumcised. I blindly assumed all males were to be circumcised. Further complicating the circumstances surrounding their births and the decision to circumcise them is the fact that their father is Jewish. He most likely would have given me pushback on not circumcising our sons, even though we had agreed to raise our family as Roman Catholics, my religion.After delivering my sons, I was asked, "Who would you like to circumcise your son?" My reply was, "Who has performed more of these procedures? And please bring my son to me to nurse after you have finished." Not one person, not one family member, not my son's father, any healthcare providers, not my pediatrician, or my OB/GYN asked me, "What are your thoughts about circumcising your son?" Had I been asked that question, I might have pondered the concept that there was a decision to be made, not a procedure that was necessary, as is the case with cutting the umbilical cord. When my infant sons were brought to me to nurse, they were sobbing so violently that they were unable to latch on to my breast. One can only surmise that no numbing agents were applied or anesthesia given, further compounding my burden of responsibility. Imagine their trauma!Over the course of my radio career, I hosted a program for an American non-profit national media organization, and one of my guests, Steven Svoboda, was scheduled to promote his newly founded organization, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC). Steven has remained a colleague. I've interviewed him a dozen times over the decades to promote ARC's amazing work. Steven is the one that first opened my eyes to the ridiculousness of male circumcision. Subsequently, I now understand that circumcision is unnecessary, not medically mandated and that the procedure denies males their [End Page E1] right to genital integrity. What I have also learned is that the removal of the foreskin is the most important sensory component and it is comprised of thousands of Meissner's corpuscles as well as branches of the dorsal nerve and in between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of several types.I have since apologized to my adult sons for the uninformed and ignorant decision I made after they were born. Two of my three sons have gracefully accepted my apology. The other son says that he's glad that he resembles both his father and most of his male peers.I have become such an "intactivist" that I earned my Ph.D. in Psychology, and my dissertation concerns itself with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and its eradication. To know that 200 million females who are alive today have experienced FGM is another responsibility... (shrink)