Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 32-41, January/February 2022.

Across care settings, the practice of lying to or withholding the truth from people living with dementia is common, yet it is objected to by many. Contrary to this common discomfort, I have argued in previous work that respecting members of this group as moral equals sometimes requires deceiving them. In this paper, I test my proposed practice against complex, controversial cases, demonstrating both its theoretical strength and its practical value for those working in social care.

Assembling a series of voices from across the field, this book demonstrates how posthuman theory can be employed to better understand and tackle some of the challenges faced by contemporary international law. With the vast environmental devastation being caused by climate change, the increasing use of artificial intelligence by international legal actors, and the need for international law to face up to its colonial past, international law needs to change. But in regulating and preserving a stable global order in which (...) states act as its main subjects, the traditional sources of international law - international legal statutes, customary international law, historical precedents and general principles of law - create a framework that slows down its capacity to act on contemporary challenges, and to imagine futures yet to come. In response, this collection maintains that posthuman theory can be used to better address the challenges faced by contemporary international law. Covering a wide array of contemporary topics - including environmental law, the law of the sea, colonialism, human rights, conflict, and the impact of science and technology - it is the first book to bring new and emerging research on posthuman theory and international law together into one volume. This book's posthuman engagement with central international legal debates, prefaced by the leading scholar in the field of posthuman theory, provides a perfect resource for students and scholars in international law, as well as critical and socio-legal theorists, and others with interests in posthuman thought, technology, colonialism and ecology. (shrink)

The transition from university to working life appears a critical period impacting human service workers’ long-term health. More research is needed on how psychological factors affect the risk. We aimed to investigate how subgroups, based on self-efficacy, psychological flexibility, and basic psychological needs satisfaction ratings, differed on self-rated health, wellbeing, and intention to leave. A postal survey was sent to 1,077 recently graduated psychologists in Sweden, response rate 57.5%, and final sample 532. A hierarchical cluster analysis resulted in a satisfactory (...) eight-cluster solution. We identified two at-risk subgroups, displaying the lowest scores on health and wellbeing, and one potential low-risk subgroup with the highest ratings on said variables. The “Low risk?” group rated high on all three psychological constructs, a positive transition to working life, a work environment where resources balanced relatively high emotional demands, good health, and wellbeing. Almost the complete opposite ratings characterized the potential risk groups. “Quitting?” scored significantly higher than “Getting sick?” on self-efficacy and psychological flexibility as well as actively seeking new employment and reporting daily thoughts on leaving the profession. We suggest that a combination of low self-efficacy and psychological flexibility could increase the risk of individuals staying despite suboptimal working conditions. With combined higher self-efficacy and psychological flexibility, individuals in similar circumstances appear more inclined to quit. We conclude that the ways recently graduated psychologists rate their self-efficacy, psychological flexibility, and basic needs satisfaction appear to be reflected in their self-rated health and wellbeing. (shrink)

This article discusses the key existential stakes of implementing biometrics in human lifeworlds. In this pursuit, we offer a problematization and reinvention of central values often taken for granted within the “ethical turn” of AI development and discourse, such as autonomy, agency, privacy and integrity, as we revisit basic questions about what it means to be human and embodied. Within a framework of existential media studies, we introduce an existential ethics of care—through a conversation between existentialism, virtue ethics, a feminist (...) ethics of care and post-humanist ethics—aiming to deepen and nuance our understanding of the human behind “human-centered” AI directives. The key argument is that biometrics implicates humans through unprecedented forms of objectification, through which the existential body—the relational, intimate and frail human being—is at risk. We interrogate these risks as they become visible at three sites where embodied humans are challenged by biometrics, and thus where the existential body is challenged by the biometric body. This occurs through reductionism (biometric passports nailing bodies to identities, removing human judgment and compromising agency at the AI border), enforced transparency (smart home assistants surveying human intimacies and invading intimate spaces in the bedroom) and the breaching of bodily integrity (chipping bodies to capture sensory data, challenging the very concept of bodily integrity through self-invasive biohacking). Our existential ethics of care is importantly not a solutionist list of principles or suggestions, but a manifesto for a way of thinking about the ethical challenges of living with biometrics in today’s world, by raising the right questions. We argue that a revitalized discussion of the basic existential stakes within human lived experience is needed and should serve as the foundation on which comprehensive frameworks can be built to address the complexities and prospects for ethical machines, responsible biometrics and AI. (shrink)

Elizabeth Barnes has recently developed an account of disability that is sensitive to the role of self-evaluation. To have a physical disability is, according to Barnes, to have a body that is merely different from the norm. Yet, as Barnes notes, some disabilities will genuinely frustrate some life plans. It may be the case, therefore, that a disability is instrumentally bad for a person and that acquiring one may be a genuine loss. Equally, however, a person may genuinely value a (...) disability such that it is instrumentally good for them and that they experience the acquiring of it as a gain. Notably, Barnes explicitly restricts this analysis to physical disabilities, leaving open the status of mental disabilities. Nevertheless, Barnes does not rule out the extension of her model to this category, and she expresses a desire to see future work on other disabilities built upon it. This article takes up this challenge, making the case that to possess a mental disability is merely to possess a minority mind. (shrink)

The dispute between the transgender-rights movement and “gender-critical” activists represents a stark division in British public discourse. Although the issues of contention are numerous and require their own philosophical treatment, a core metaphysical concern underlies them. Gender-critical activists, such as Kathleen Stock, tend to argue that recognizing trans women as women requires erasing the category of biological sex. This implies that all trans women are male, and thus recognizing them as women rips female biology from the root of the category (...) “woman.” In this article, I argue that this view is mistaken. As exogenously produced sex characteristics should count toward a person's sex classification, all trans women are female. (shrink)

Not least among the many enigmas attending the origins and development of the first vernacular lyric in the European Middle Ages is the existence of at least twenty women poets who lived in southern France from about the mid-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth century and who participated in the highly conventionalized poetic system created by the troubadours, those humble poetlovers who sang to their beloved as domna, the superior lady. In periods when the tides of feminism are high these women's voices (...) have insistently claimed our attention, as we try to understand their songs and puzzle over their very existence. Their poetic inventions require us in particular to pay close attention to the subtle, even elusive, concept of voice—its relation to the identity of the poet and the poem's speaker, the elements that characterize its expression, the multiplicity of images created by different voices, and so on. If we are willing to listen and analyze carefully, the trobairitz have much to teach us about the way women poets enter into and find their place in a traditional poetic system created by male poets. Their songs demonstrate with intricate complexity the way poetic fictions play with cultural, literary, and social definitions of man and woman, masculine and feminine; their poems offer valuable warnings about the pitfalls involved in generalizing women into woman. (shrink)

Carers often interfere with the choices of people living with dementia. On neorepublican and (most) relational egalitarian views, interference can be justified if it tracks a person's interests: if it does not lead to a relationship of domination. However, the kind of environment-shaping interventions carers often pursue would be considered infantilising or objectionably paternalistic in other cases. In this paper, I defend this indirect approach and argue that it offers the best prospects of dementia care without domination.

Despite negative effects on their health and social lives, many informal carers of people living with dementia claim to be acting in accordance with a moral obligation. Indeed, feelings of failure and shame are commonly reported by those who later give up their caring responsibilities, suggesting a widespread belief that professional dementia care, whether delivered in the person's own home or in an institutional setting, ought always to be a last resort. In this paper, however, I suggest that this common (...) intuition gets things the wrong way around. Adopting a relational egalitarian framework, I argue that the most serious injustices engendered by present‐day dementia care services are contingent on broader societal structures—they can thus be ameliorated relatively easily (if resource intensively) by changing those structures. Informal dementia care, on the other hand, carries similar risks of injustice and is much more resistant to structural reform. While there may be moral obligations to provide informal dementia care in present‐day societies, then, they arise because of the deficiencies of professional care, not the virtues of its informal counterpart. Though we may be far from achieving just care arrangements in most of our societies, we must never lose sight of the fact that, when we engage in morally permitted informal dementia care, we are exercising our last resort. (shrink)

At the intersection of literature and history, three “antique romances” initiated a new genre in the mid-twelfth century by transposing into French the great stories of Greek and Latin epic: the fratricidal war of Oedipus's sons in the Roman de Thèbes, the founding of Rome in the Eneas, and the Roman de Troie's Trojan War based on Dares and Dictys. Rejecting Homer's version for these “eyewitness” accounts, Benoît de Sainte-Maure translated the full history of the Trojan War from its beginning (...) in the tale of Jason and the Argonauts to the annihilation of Troy and the victors’ unhappy homecomings. The myth of Trojan descent claimed by many European rulers, including the British and Normans, gives Benoît's translation more than entertainment value for his first public, the Plantagenêt court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Indeed, while repeatedly assuring his readers that this great estoire, story and history, will provide pleasurable enjoyment, Benoît also signals a more serious intent by invoking Solomon and the seven liberal arts: we would be like beasts if not for learning from the past that allows us to distinguish between wisdom and folly. The author/narrator's school training is on full display as he highlights the importance of remembering and the dangers of forgetting. Obliged to share his knowledge, Benoît will put into romanz matter that is at once old and new, lost and refound, so that lay readers without access to his Latin sources can “remember” their past as he shapes it in romance. The success of his enterprise can be gauged by the number of extant manuscripts as well as the romance's subsequent influence on multiple versions of Trojan history, from the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. But can we pinpoint more specifically what and how Benoît's public might remember? (shrink)

Matilda Mroz argues that cinema provides an ideal opportunity to engage with ideas of temporal flow and change. Temporality, however, remains an underexplored area of film analysis, which frequently discusses images as though they were still rather than moving. This book traces the operation of duration in cinema, and argues that temporality should be a central concern of film scholarship. In close readings of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror, and the ten short films that make up Krzysztof Kielowski’s (...) Decalogue series, Mroz highlights how film analysis must consider both particular moments in cinema which are critically significant, and the way in which such moments interrelate in temporal flux. She explores the concepts of duration and rhythm, resonance and uncertainty, affect, sense and texture, to bring a fresh perspective to film analysis and criticism. Essential reading for students and scholars in Film Studies, this engaging study will also be a valuable resource for critical theorists. (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the moral requirement to include persons with serious cognitive impairments in democratic decision‐making. That said, including such persons poses particular practical challenges to effective democratic participation. Nussbaum has set out the most extensive proposals for inclusion based on a model of guardianship, but we find they fall short due to not suitably respecting and facilitating the subjective decision‐making of impaired persons. Instead, we argue for a model of co‐constitution, whereby aides work within a (...) supported decision‐making paradigm to arrive at political choices in collaboration with impaired persons. To flesh out this model, we propose collaboration be based on three ideal types of interaction – expert, Socratic, and deliberative – designed to accommodate differing degrees and types of cognitive impairments. We further argue that the aide should have a relationship of detached professionalism with the impaired person and therefore should not be the person’s carer. Finally, we conclude that this separation be combined with transparent and regular invigilation of the aide’s decision‐making process to best safeguard the process from abuse or error. (shrink)

This state of the art collection offers fresh perspectives on why intersections between literature, religion, and ethics can address the fault lines of modernity and are not necessarily the cause of modernity's 'faults.' From a diverse cohort of scholars from around the world, with appointments in comparative literature and other disciplines, the essays suggest that the imagined hegemony of a Judeo-Christian Western project is neither exclusively true nor productive. However, the essays also suggest that elements of the Western religious traditions (...) are important vectors for understanding modernity's complicated relationship to the past. (shrink)

Global challenge-led research seeks to contribute to solution-generation for complex problems. Multicultural, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral teams must be capable of operating in highly deman...

Healthcare rationing during pandemics has been widely discussed in global bioethics literature. However, existing scenarios and analyses have focused on high income countries, except for very few disease areas such as HIV treatment where some analyses related to African countries exist. We argue that the lack of scholastic discourse, and by extension, professional and democratic engagement on the subject constitute an unacceptable ethical omission. Not only have African governments failed to develop robust ethical plans for pandemics, ethicists in this region (...) have been unable to ignite public discourse on rationing. Therefore, we aim to initiate a debate on how rationing health and social goods could be done ethically in Ghana during the current and future pandemics. The paper discusses and critiques some moral considerations for rationing and their relevance in the Ghanaian context. This contribution may facilitate ethical decision-making during the current pandemic - in Ghana and other African settings where hardly any rationing guidelines exist. (shrink)

The article reflects on the therapeutic and ethical potential of literature, the theme which is often marginalized and overlooked by literary critics, in the novel Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. Matilda, the main character of the analyzed novel, finds salvation in the times of war and oppression thanks to Charles Dickens’s masterpiece, Great Expectations, and the only white man on the island−her teacher, Mr. Watts. Matilda’s strong identification with Dickensian Pip and imagination make her escape to another world, (...) become a self-conscious person and reunite with her father. The paper also discusses relationships between Matilda, Mr. Watts and her mother, Dolores. I attempt to show the emotional development of the characters, their interactions, changes, sense of identity, and, having analyzed their actions, I compare them to protagonists created by Charles Dickens. Needless to say, drawing the reader’s attention to British culture and traditions, Lloyd Jones avoids focusing on the negative aspects of the postcolonial views, pointing out that “the white man” can be an example of a Dickensian gentleman. (shrink)

Dans l’Europe médiévale, l’art de la guerre est considéré comme spécifiquement masculin. Et pourtant, au détour des chroniques et des documents d’archives, il est possible de croiser des guerrières qui combattent pour défendre leurs fiefs ou s’engagent parmi les rangs des croisés. Cette pratique de la guerre au féminin, très minoritaire, mais avérée, reposait-elle sur un droit, ou, bien au contraire, bravait-elle toutes les interdictions des lois civiles et religieuses? Si le droit civil l’interdit, la réponse de l’Église semble parfois (...) plus ambigüe. C’est le cas aux xie et xiie siècles où, dans le cadre de la Querelle des Investitures, la comtesse Mathilde de Toscane est à l’origine d’une polémique qui a vu s’opposer les partisans de la réforme grégorienne à ceux de l’empereur Henri iv et qui s’est précisément cristallisée sur cette question : les femmes ont-elles le droit de faire la guerre? (shrink)

In her signature style, revolutionary Mary Daly takes you on a Quantum leap into a joyous future of victory for women. Daly, the groundbreaking author of such classics as Beyond God the Father and The Church and the Second Sex , explores the visions of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the great nineteenth-century philosopher, and reveals that her insights are stunningly helpful to twenty-first-century Voyagers seeking to overcome the fascism and life-hating fundamentalism that has infused current power structures. Daly shows us (...) once again that Wild, Wise Women can learn to take charge of the current destructive patriarchal forces and use this as an Outlandish opportunity for change. (shrink)

The Historia Novella is a key source for the succession dispute between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda which brought England to civil war in the twelfth century. William of Malmesbury was the doyen of the historians of his day. His account of the main events of the years 1126 to 1142, to some of which he was an eyewitness, is sympathetic to the empress's cause, but not uncritical of her. Edmund King offers a complete revision of K. R. (...) Potter's edition of 1955, retaining only the translation, which has been amended in places. Not only is this a new edition but it offers a new text, arguing that what have earlier been seen as William of Malmesbury's final revisions are not from his hand. Rather they seem to come from somewhere in the circle of Robert of Gloucester, the empress's half-brother, to whom the work is dedicated. In this way the work raises important questions concerning the transmission of medieval texts. (shrink)

Finding Oz tells the remarkable story behind one of the world’s most enduring and best-loved books. Offering profound new insights into the true origins and meaning of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 masterwork, it delves into the personal turmoil and spiritual transformation that fueled Baum’s fantastical parable of the American Dream. Before becoming an impresario of children’s adventure tales, the J. K. Rowling of his age, Baum failed at a series of careers and nearly lost his soul before setting out on (...) a journey of discovery that would lead to the Land of Oz. Drawing on original research, Evan Schwartz debunks popular misconceptions and shows how the people, places, and events in Baum’s life gave birth to his unforgettable images and characters, from the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City to the dual view of witches that reflected the life of Baum’s mother-in-law, the radical women’s rights leader Matilda Joslyn Gage. A narrative that sweeps across late-nineteenth-century America, Finding Oz ultimately reveals how failure and heartbreak can sometimes lead to redemption and bliss, and how one individual can ignite the imagination of the entire world. (shrink)

Finding Oz tells the remarkable story behind one of the world’s most enduring and best-loved books. Offering profound new insights into the true origins and meaning of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 masterwork, it delves into the personal turmoil and spiritual transformation that fueled Baum’s fantastical parable of the American Dream. Before becoming an impresario of children’s adventure tales, the J. K. Rowling of his age, Baum failed at a series of careers and nearly lost his soul before setting out on (...) a journey of discovery that would lead to the Land of Oz. Drawing on original research, Evan Schwartz debunks popular misconceptions and shows how the people, places, and events in Baum’s life gave birth to his unforgettable images and characters, from the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City to the dual view of witches that reflected the life of Baum’s mother-in-law, the radical women’s rights leader Matilda Joslyn Gage. A narrative that sweeps across late-nineteenth-century America, Finding Oz ultimately reveals how failure and heartbreak can sometimes lead to redemption and bliss, and how one individual can ignite the imagination of the entire world. (shrink)

The issue of wiping over socks is part of the more general issue of wiping over leather socks (khuffayn) for ablution (wuḍū’). Washing feet or wiping over them is a debate whose sides bases their claims on the verses of the Qur’an and supports these claims with narrations. When performing ablution, if shoes or socks are on the feet, whether one can wipe over them without taking these off and the qualities that these clothes should have is a debate based (...) on hadith narrations. Most Muslims except for the Ja’farite are of the opinion that either washing the feet or wiping over a khuff or similar clothing that was put on while a person already had ablution can be done during ablution, while the Ja’farite think that wiping over bare feet is enough but wiping over khuff is not. There is a consensus that shoes, boots, buskins and other leather footwear qualify as khuff. However, there is disagreement over whether clothing from materials like cotton, linen, wool, and felt -usually referred to as socks- qualify as khuff. For this reason, some Muslims of the world wipe over socks while others do not. There are contemporary fatwas (legal opinion) that are supportive of either of the positions. However, there are those who treat this issue beyond choosing a side in an ijtihad (process of juristic legal reasoning) and some who wipe on socks are censured strongly. In this research based on an examination of the fiqh heritage, the goal is to contribute to making this issue better understood and its fiqh ruling clearer.Summary: The sixth verse of Surah Ma’idah in the Qur’an clearly states that wuḍū’ requires washing the face, arms up until elbows, and wiping over the head. However, when it comes to the fourth element of wuḍū’, the feet, there has been disagreement about whether it should be wiped or washed. Arabic grammar rules and narrations have been interpreted in ways that support both views; in general Sunni sects, Zaydis, and Kharijites argue the feet should be washed while Shia Ja’farites are in favor of wiping over bare feet. There have also been efforts among faqihs (jurists) to reconcile washing and wiping; washing slightly; choosing the better one between the two; washing when not covered, wiping when covered; washing if there is dirt, wiping if it is clean; viewing at least wiping as fard (obligatory), washing as a Sunna (recommended) that includes the fard as a way to unify the two approaches have also been proposed.According to widely accepted narrations, the prophet and his companions washed their feet when performing wuḍū’ and once they put on their shoes having had wuḍū’, the next time they only wiped over the shoes without taking them off. In less commonly accepted narrations, which some hadith authorities regard as authentic, the Prophet is said to have wiped over his socks. In narration sources, it has been narrated that about fifteen faqih companions, among them ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar, saw wiping over socks as appropriate. However, there are no narrations about the companions disapproving of wiping over socks. Among those who approved of wiping over socks are tābiʿūn (successors) faqihs like Saʿīd b. D̲j̲ubayr, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ve al-Aʿmash, and Mujtahid Imams like Zufar, Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ, Ibn al-Mubārak, Abū Yūsuf, Muḥammad al-Shaybānī, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh. Considering their most prominent positions, we can say that Ḥanafis and Shafis allow wiping over socks that are thick and opaque, Hanbalis allow it over socks that cover the foot even if thin, while Mālikīs do not allow wiping over socks at all.As far as it is understood from narrations from the Prophet’s time, due to both climate conditions and weaving possibilities, socks were used only rarely. Also, footwear like shoes or slippers made of leather were very hard to find and narrations suggest that prayers were performed at houses and the masjids over soil base on either bare foot or with shoes. For these reasons, the issue of wiping over socks did not arise at the time and at later periods different opinions on the issue led to disagreements. When carpets were placed on the ground at later periods, performing the prayer with shoes was abandoned and a second layer of shoes (khuff) was placed inside the shoes as khuff. Since removing the shoes would invalidate wuḍū’ performed over that shoe, those who wanted to avoid the difficulty of having to wash their feet each time they needed wuḍū’ have instead wiped over this second layer once they put them on after performing wuḍū’.Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, who tend to approach the issue of wiping over socks with hesitation and make this conditional on some strict rules, emphasize that the socks to be wiped over should be similar to shoes in terms of thickness, based on the idea that it is certain that the Prophet has wiped over shoes made of leather but his wiping over socks is weaker and that the qualities of those socks are not clear. Among the thickness criteria expressed for the socks are being waterproof, the ability to walk for at least a league with it, and its ability to hold on to feet without being tied at the wrists. Due to these criteria, which have been developed to protect the wuḍū’ and whose boundaries are not well specified, especially among Ḥanafis the idea that wiping over socks is not allowed has gained popularity. As opposed to this, in circles dominated by Ḥanbalīs opinions allowing wiping over any type of socks have been expressed.At times when the Prophet had his shoes on and did not want to take off his shoes, he used to wipe over the shoes. The equivalent of this act today is to wipe over socks since prayer with shoes on is not common any more. While nowadays wiping over socks is an ease for everybody when performing wuḍū’, it is something that is especially needed under certain circumstances. Cold weather and the lack of drying possibilities for the feet leading catching cold and illness, socks that are put on when feet are wet leading to bad smell and fungus on feet, the hardship of elevating the feet high enough to the sink and of changing socks on one foot when there are no special wuḍū’ places, the fact that at societies distant from Islamic culture it is seen against the etiquette to wash feet in the sink are among the reasons why this need arises. Because most of the time we are not in a position to determine the circumstances of our work and travels at modern times, it can be said that today this need is more than it was in the past.Some scholars of today use a precautionary principle and argue that the Qur’an commands to wash the feet, and the only narration powerful enough to make an exception to this rule is about masts made of leather, and extending this to include socks would go against the precaution principle and some other principles of uṣūl al-fiqh (Islamic legal theory). However, some other scholars who use the ease in religion principle argue that the permission to wipe over masts also include wiping over socks and that they are of the same nature, that there are authentic narrations that show wiping over socks are allowed and that one can even talk of an ijmāʿ (consensus) among the companions on this issue, and that seeking additional qualities socks on which one is to wipe over, such as thickness, ability to walk with it, its ability to hold on to the feet, being waterproof, have no merit in the sharīʿa. Jamaleddīn Qāsimī, who wrote a special research book on the topic, and scholars like Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Bāz, Ibn al Uthaymeen think that one can wipe over daily socks that do not show the skin beneath it, while scholars predominantly of the Ḥanafi opinion hold that one cannot wipe over the thin daily socks. (shrink)

This article proposes a reading of the lives of teachers through a Deleuzian-Guattarian materialistic approach. By asking the question ‘what kind of life do teachers live?’ this article reminds us that teachers sometimes welcome the imposed policies, procedures and programmes, the consequences of which remove them from students. This desire is compared to another desire—the desire for children. Teachers are seen as machines rather than singular organisms, so that what helps a teacher in her becoming are her connections to students. (...) Activities are seen in terms of intensities and flows, rather than as actions which crystallise such flows. Roald Dahl's story of Matilda is used as a fictional example of the above. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 189-202 [Access article in PDF] Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772 John Christian Laursen * Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza was the arch-heretic of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was denounced in half a dozen languages from the time he began to publish until at least the 1780s, when Lessing's allegiance to Spinoza became the heart of (...) a literary scandal. 1 In time-honored fashion, some of these denunciations led to the burning of books and the imprisonment or banning of authors. The most spectacular case, however, led to the trial of a prime minister, the cutting off of his right hand and of his head, and the drawing and quartering of his body in full public ceremony. The year was 1772, the prime minister was Johann Friedrich Struensee, and the country was Denmark.Late eighteenth-century Denmark was not known for barbarities of the type represented by Struensee's execution. Previously disgraced prime ministers had merely been imprisoned, and other political enemies of the ruling powers had [End Page 189] merely been exiled. 2 Why such harshness with Struensee? What was at stake in the fall of Struensee?The answers to these questions are complex, but an important element of those answers lies in Struensee's public image, which made it seem both necessary and justifiable to treat him with such harshness. In turn, public opinion about Struensee was closely tied to the reputation of Spinoza. This essay will show that charges of Spinozism were part of the campaign that poisoned public opinion against Struensee. This was an unusually clear case of a theological and philosophical debate having direct political effects.Before getting to the role of Spinozism and anti-Spinozism in eighteenth-century Denmark, let us fill in important points of the story. The charge against Struensee was lèse majesté, for plotting the death of the King and for usurping power in violation of the constitution. Behind these charges was a further element which encouraged outrage: sleeping with Queen Caroline Matilda. That much was true, as both the Queen, a sister of George III of England, and Struensee admitted, each in order to save the other. The King knew about it all along but did not care. He did not care because he had become a libertine, going out to whorehouses most nights with rowdy friends, and he figured that what was good for the gander was good for the goose. He was also schizophrenic and easily manipulable by those around him, so that Struensee and the Queen encountered no disapproval from him until he fell under other people's influence. After Struensee and the Queen were taken into custody, the King was forced to divorce the Queen and she was sent to live in a Hannoverian castle in Celle because her brother did not want the embarrassment of having her back in England. She died there a few years later. 3It is an irony that we owe our knowledge of the state of public opinion in Denmark in this period to Struensee. Until shortly before the fatal events mentioned above, the Danish press had been subject to censorship that might have prevented the expression of many of the subsequent attacks on Struensee. But in September 1770 Struensee persuaded the king to declare freedom of the press in all his realms (consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the Duchies of Slesvig and Holsten [Schleswig and Holstein in German], Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and colonies in India, Africa, and the Caribbean). 4 It is not widely [End Page 190] known that Denmark was the first country to declare unlimited freedom of the press as official public policy. For much of the century England and the Netherlands had effective freedom of the press, but it had never been declared official policy. The next to do so was rebellious Virginia, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), followed by other colonies and then the Bill of Rights of the new... (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker’s stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more likely speakers will be denied recognition or credit. The four types of epistemic positioning – bounding (reducing a (...) knowledge claim to elements of personal identity), domaining (reducing a knowledge claim to discipline or field associated with identity), non-attribution (using the claim without recognizing the author) and appropriation (presenting the claim as one’s own) – are mutually reinforcing. Given the growing importance of visibility and recognition in the context of increasing competition and insecurity in academic employment, these practices play a role in the ability of underrepresented groups to remain in the academic profession. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Context Patriotism Citizenship History Teaching History Teaching for Patriotic Citizenship Conclusion Notes References.

This book reminds us in yet another context that women's contributions to science can be rendered invisible by “the historical record.” The Manhattan Project, the supersecret midcentury United States research, development, and production enterprise that produced the nuclear bomb, was a massive undertaking, at one time employing 130,000 persons. About 10 percent were women, yet official histories made no mention of female scientists or engineers.Sleuthing by the physicists Ruth Howes and Caroline Herzenberg has documented Manhattan Project contributions by more than (...) three hundred women. Howes and Herzenberg begin with a few well‐known European women pioneers in nuclear science , none Americans and none available for the U.S. bomb effort. They then recount the history of the Manhattan Project via biographical vignettes of women, organized in chapters: “The Physicists,” “The Chemists,” “Mathematicians and Calculators,” “Biologists and Medical Scientists,” “The Technicians,” and “Other Women of the Manhattan Project.”It appears that few of these women knew each other. In her foreword, Ellen Weaver writes: “When I read the personal reminiscences of the men who were nuclear pioneers, I'm struck by the importance they place on their friends and associates, and on the often intense interaction among them, which could lead to major insights in both theory and practice of science. And I'm a bit jealous. By and large, women did not share in that give‐and‐take.”Not only was there little networking among women scientists and technicians in the early 1940s while the bomb was being developed, but there was little opportunity for them to share their experiences later. Only a very small percentage of these women were able to continue their professional careers. The many barriers to women as professional scientists and engineers, temporarily lowered owing to the manpower shortages of wartime, were raised after the war. There did not develop a community of women, engaged in teaching and research, with roots in the Manhattan Project.A web page is being developed to gather and provide further information about the women scientific workers of the Manhattan Project. Howes and Herzenberg are setting up an on‐line archive there, hoping that others who have information about the women scientific workers of the Manhattan Project will contact them via the web page or by email .The magnitude of their endeavor to learn about these women was illustrated vividly to me while writing this review. I attended the memorial service for my aunt, Mary Matilda Morrison Pendleton , and heard in her eulogy that “she worked as a nurse at the Hanford project, near Richland, Washington, where the government was secretly making atomic bombs. She would work shift work, two weeks of day shift, two weeks of swing shift, two weeks of graveyard shift, then she would get seven days off. She wore a badge every day that was checked after each day's work to see how much she had been radiated.” Although I thought that I knew her well, my aunt's role in the Manhattan Project had been unknown to me.The women of the Manhattan Project are finally gaining visibility. For example, Nancy Cook Steeper's book‐length biography of Dorothy Scarritt McKibbon is being published by the Los Alamos Historical Society. Howes and Herzenberg have provided ideas and starting points for many additional biographical projects. Perhaps the greatest long‐term value of their book is the impetus that it will give to further research.The book is well written, easy to read, and attractively printed. An appendix, listing the women and their roles, and a thorough index combine to make this an easily used reference work. There is also an informative sixteen‐page chronology that focuses on the crucial period from 1938 through 1945. (shrink)