Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Secret History: Return of the Black Death Channel 4, 7-8pm In 1348 the Black Death swept through London, killing people within days of the appearance of their first symptoms. Exactly how many died, and why, has long been a mystery. This Secret History documentary follows experts as they pick through the evidence and reveal why the plague killed on such a scale. And they ask, what might be coming next?

Medscape

http://ross.mayfirst.org/files/zhao-Identity-construction-facebook.pdf

Identity construction on Facebook

Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World.

Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. By Kwame Anthony Appiah. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Pp. xxii + 196, preface, introduction, acknowledgments, notes, index. $24.95 cloth, $15.95 paper) Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism is meant as a guide for identifying and confronting complex ethical issues in a multi-perspectival world. Its author, an Oxford-educated philosopher of Ghanaian-British parentage, bridges worlds. The term cosmopolitanism - the author prefers it over globalizations narrow association with economics and multiculturalismi observed tendency to prescribe - encompasses two core values: "the idea that we have obligations to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kin, or even formal ties of a shared citizenship," and the idea "that we take seriously the value not just of human life but of particular human lives, which means taking an interest in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance" (xv). Terms such as tolerance, kindness, and pluralism are central to cosmopolitan thinking. Appiah presents a wide range of issues that can serve as frames through which to examine how we as individuals and professionals make ethical decisions - essential for the humanities scholar, student, and public-sector folklorist: How real are values? What do we talk about when we talk about differences? Is any form of relativism right? When do morals and manners clash? Can culture be owned? What do we owe strangers by virtue of our shared humanity? And all this is good... and yet, and yet. Too often, the resolutions Appiah proposes for these key issues are so one-sided and misleading, so bolstered by irrelevant, erroneous, and outdated sources, that they are of little help in sorting through the paradoxical interfaces of pluralism and autonomy, diversity and democracy, and globalization and protection of what is valuable in the local. In his central chapter, "Cosmopolitan Contamination," Appiah proposes a change of priorities - away from purity, peoples, authenticity, tribalism, and cultural protection, and toward individuals, mixture, modernity, rights, and what he calls contamination (his term for healthy hybridization) . His philosophical underpinning ("The right approach, I think, starts by taking individuals - not nations, tribes or 'peoples' - as die proper object of moral concern" [Appiah 2006] ) is a hallmark of rightist thought and practice. The left emphasizes social, political, and environmental factors that can constrain the ability of individuals to choose freely. Both perspectives are needed, but only one is developed in this book. Many folklorists are familiar with issues of cultural change and preservation as discussed at UNESCO and WIPO. Appiah reveals no understanding of the complexities of diese dynamics. He wrongly assumes many anthropologists to be cultural relativists who tolerate such practices as female genital mutilation (15) and that UNESCO's Declaration of Cultural Diversity celebrates a pluralism that could embrace the likes of the KKK conveniently ignoring Article IV: "No one may invoke cultural diversity to infringe upon human right. …

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

Globalization—the increasing interconnectedness of societies, economies, and cultures—is a defining feature of contemporary social life. Paradoxically, it underlies both the dynamics of global cris...

Social Identities in a Globalized World: Challenges and Opportunities for Collective Action

Online sexual behavior may be more completely explained by integrating a Pull Factor analysis, centering on the characteristics of the Internet that make it an appealing outlet for sexuality (e.g., “Triple A Engine”) and a Push Factor analysis, centering on characteristics of the offline world that disallow fulfillment of sexual desires. This new framework is utilized in explaining paraphilic (unconventional) sexualities online. Because paraphilics are members of highly concealable, horizontal and rare sexual minorities, they are pushed online by mainstream society. Online, paraphilics interact with similar others, and through lurking, re-learning and self-disclosing, may become sexually empowered. Clinical ramifications of attainment of positive sexual-social identity via empowerment are discussed, as are possible affects on public Policy.

Forced online: push factors of internet sexuality: A preliminary study of online paraphilic empowerment.

Despite scholarly interest in changes in masculinity, no study to date offers quantitative measures of nontraditional masculinity ideologies. We identify common denominators of “new masculinity” (NM) ideology rooted in therapeutic discourse, which includes themes of authenticity and holistic self-awareness. A theoretical construct of NM was formalized from in-depth interviews and operationalized as the NM Inventory (NMI). The NMI was tested for structural and external validity in two quantitative samples of Israeli men. The inventory demonstrated discriminant validity with traditional and consumer masculinity ideologies, converged with self-labeling as feminist, and was uniquely predicted by lower levels of modern sexism. This suggests stronger associations between NM and feminist attitudes than previously argued. Lay responses confounded between self-labeling as new man and as metrosexual, echoing ambiguities in public rhetoric of NM. As a unique measure of nontraditional masculinity, the NMI can spur mo...

What about Nontraditional Masculinities? Toward a Quantitative Model of Therapeutic New Masculinity Ideology

This study was designed to examine influences of gender and cultural background on participants’ satisfaction with body-shape. Participants were Jewish and Arab university students (104 men and 96 women), who completed the Figure Rating Scale (Fallon & Rozin, 1985). Discrepancy between current and ideal figures was used to measure body satisfaction. As in the U.S., women, in comparison with men, were significantly less satisfied with their bodies. They exaggerated the magnitude of thinness that they thought men desire. In contrast with U.S. findings, there were women as well as men, who indicated dissatisfaction with their bodies because they thought they were too thin. Contrary to our predictions, cultural background did not influence body satisfaction. However, gender and age produced significant differences in ratings.

When Gender Differences Surpass Cultural Differences in Personal Satisfaction with Body Shape in Israeli College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine self-reported connections between sexual orientation (SO) and tomboyism in an Israeli sample. This study also focused on the connection between tomboyism and adult gender roles, and between gender roles and SO. A sample of 127 participants was solicited from lesbian organizations and from workplaces. Participants' SO was self-defined twice, using a forced choice and a Kinsey-type scale. Results revealed a connection between tomboyism and lesbianism. The overall level of tomboyism was lower then reported elsewhere. A relationship between tomboyism and gender roles emerged only for adolescence, and SO was only marginal related to gender roles. The definitions of tomboyism, cultural effects, Israeli society, adolescence gender roles, and bisexualism are discussed.

Amir Rosenmann

Papers

Social Identities in a Globalized World: Challenges and Opportunities for Collective Action

Forced online: push factors of internet sexuality: A preliminary study of online paraphilic empowerment.

What about Nontraditional Masculinities? Toward a Quantitative Model of Therapeutic New Masculinity Ideology

When Gender Differences Surpass Cultural Differences in Personal Satisfaction with Body Shape in Israeli College Students

Tomboyism, Sexual Orientation, and Adult Gender Roles Among Israeli Women