Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence

The aim of this thesis is to explore understandings about hope within the experience of trauma for women from refugee communities. In spite of intense focus on the three discourses of hope, trauma and refugees, no consensus exists within any of them. All are fractured by tension, conflict and incongruity that reflect historical, present and perceived future imperatives. Any endeavour to coalesce understanding about the significance of hope within trauma for refugees will be characterised by this complexity. Consequently, secondary research was undertaken within each discourse, and a constructive framework for the facilitation of hope for refugee communities is proposed. A Hermeneutic Social Ecological Framework for trauma is developed that facilitates the understanding of the interdependent relationships between individuals and the multifaceted social ecological environments in which they exist. As interpretations of hope are diverse within the disciplines of philosophy, religion, psychiatry, psychology, the health sciences and social work, these are outlined to reveal perspectives of hope that range from overt optimism, to acknowledgement of its fundamental significance, to ambivalence and to a negative assessment. The biomedical model of trauma encompassing definitions of trauma, resilience, posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic growth is also critically discussed. Historically, refugees have been viewed with concern, indifference and animosity. This research provided an opportunity for the voices of eight refugee women from Bosnia, South Sudan and Sri Lanka now living in Australia to be heard. In depth interviews were undertaken with the women and their narratives were analysed using hermeneutic phenomenological analysis. The findings indicated that hope can underlie and transform experiences of trauma. For these refugee women, hope can constructively be understood as differentiating between hopefulness and hope objectives that were both facilitated by perseverance through reciprocal relationships. However, trauma casts dark shadows across life that is interpreted through reflections of

Hope within Trauma for Refugee Women: Whispers and Echoes through Shadows and Reflections

Marx and Human Nature--Refutation of a Legend/Norman Geras(1983)--マルクス の背面にあるもの

This essay provides a rhetorical analysis of the Wilkomirski Affair and some of the recent public debates that have discussed the importance of childhood memoirs and the formation of authentic Holocaust identities. The author argues that rhetorical processes are involved in both the construction of what are deemed “authentic” memoirs and the formation of the standards of evaluation that are used in legitimating those authenticated memories. Moreover, the author contends that the perceptual nature of this authenticating process means that some Holocaust memories are co-produced by authors and their critics. By comparing some of the textual claims that appeared in Wilkomirski's Fragments with some of the audience interpretations of those claims, rhetorical scholars gain an appreciation of the polysemic nature of first and “second” generation child survivor memoirs. The essay concludes by evaluating the perceived effectiveness of Wilkomirski's performance as a Jewish victim of the Holocaust, and argues that ...

Authenticity, public memories, and the problematics of post-holocaust remembrances : A rhetorical analysis of the Wilkomirski affair

How to get out of Iraq

Progress without foundations

This article considers the motivational supports that might be thought necessary and also possible for socialism. It does this by way of a critique of G.A. Cohen's Why not socialism? The article begins by briefly summarizing the argument of that book, then goes on to identify a logical tension in Cohen's presentation of the socialist – at once egalitarian and communal – ethos of the camping trip (as assessed against a sixfold typology of person-to-person relations), and from this tension, as well as from independent evidence, it calls into question Cohen's hope that people might come to regard and treat each other on a society-wide scale in the same way they regard and treat their camping-trip companions. The postscript asks whether the camping trip ideal would be desirable for society even if it were feasible, and then suggests why it might not.

Staying home: G.A. Cohen and the motivational basis of socialism

The paper considers whether it matters that Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments is not, as he presented it, a genuine survivor account, but rather a fabrication or fiction. It matters in one way and it doesn't in another. It matters because the truth is important: both in general and with regard specifically to the Holocaust. However, that Fragments is a fiction also doesn't matter, for it can be read independently of its author's identity; can be read as being, indeed, fiction. Read thus, the book retains much of its power and quality as a narrative of what the memories of a child survivor might be.

The True Wilkomirski

Hope is a precious resource. But, deluded, not based on a sober appraisal of the relevant realities, hope can also be lethal. One kind of hope is utopian hope. It does not exhaust what social hope is, or should be, about. The hope of remedying the most terrible injustices makes an urgent call on our attention. The world has travelled some way from the time when tyrannical governments could act with impunity in dealing with those under their jurisdiction. But it has not travelled far enough. There remain a number of deficits in the system of international law: "thresholds of inhumanity".

Norman Geras

Papers

Progress without foundations

Staying home: G.A. Cohen and the motivational basis of socialism

The True Wilkomirski

Social Hope and State Lawlessness