Showing papers on "nobody published in 2013"

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract: A New York Times #1 Bestseller An Amazon #1 Bestseller A Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Sunday Times Bestseller Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner of the British Academy Medal Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award "It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year-and maybe of the decade." -Paul Krugman, New York Times "The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat." -The Economist "Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of economic history over the theoretical, mathematical modeling that has come to dominate the economics profession in recent years." -Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post "Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book...In its scale and sweep it brings us back to the founders of political economy." -Martin Wolf, Financial Times "A sweeping account of rising inequality...Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore." -John Cassidy, New Yorker "Stands a fair chance of becoming the most influential work of economics yet published in our young century. It is the most important study of inequality in over fifty years." -Timothy Shenk, The Nation

Geopolitics and Expertise: Knowledge and Authority in European Diplomacy

Abstract: Series Editors' Preface vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction: The Crown Jewel 1 1 The Dead Relative: Bounding Europe in Europe 12 Geopolitics by Nobody Carving Places out of Space Embodied Europes 2 Knowledge and Policy in Transnational Fields 32 Placing Diplomatic Knowledge Policy Fields "The work of reciprocal elucidation" 3 Brussels and Theatre: Bureaucracy and Place 61 Planet Brussels Those Who Hold the Pen: EU Professionals The Political and the Technical and the Social 4 Transnational Diplomats: Representing Europe in EU 27 86 European External Action Service Curved Mirrors: Negotiating the National The Group for Which There is no Term: The New Member States 5 Powers of Conceptualization and Contextualization 112 A New Object of Knowledge Fields of Expertise in the European Quarter "Most people just want to do what they are told" 6 Feel for the Game: Symbolic Capital in the European Quarter 133 Symbolic Capital "We are dealing with elites" "In the third degree of depth" "An urbane, subtle approach" Shifts and Spirals 7 Political Geographies of Expertise 171 Knowledge From and On the East Finding a Market "Things are evolving" Managing Difference Conclusion: Circles of Knowledge 195 References 209 Index 225

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

Abstract: Hollywood historiography theses on the philosophy of Hollywood history, Murray Smith "Nobody Knows Everything" - post-classical historiographies and consolidated entertainment, Richard Maltby economics, industry, and institutions Hollywood corporate business practice and periodizing contemporary film history, Douglas Gomery "A Major Presence in All of the World Markets" - the globalization of Hollywood in the 1990s, Tino Balio the formation of the "Major Independent" - Miramax, New Line, and the New Hollywood, Justin Wyatt to the rear of the back end - the economics of independent cinema, James Shamus aesthetics and technology from "Bwana Devil" to "Batman Forever" - technology in contemporary Hollywood cinema, Mike Allan widescreen composition in the age of television, Steve Neale the classical score forever? - "Batman", "Batman Forever" and Post-classical film music, Kevin Donnelly a cry in the dark - the role of post-classical film sound, Gianluca Sergi a close encounter with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - notes on narrative aspects of the new Hollywood blockbuster, Warren Buckland questioning the classical - narrative and narration in the classical Hollywood cinema, Elizabeth Cowie spectacularity and engulfment - Francis Ford Coppola and "Bram Stoker's Dracula", Thomas Elsaesser audience, address, and ideology Hollywood and independent black cinema, Tommy L. Lott no fixed address - the women's picture from "Outrage" to "Blue Steel", Pam Cook new Hollywood's new women - "Murder in mind" - Sarah and Margie, Hilary Radner censorship and narrative indeterminacy in Basic Instinct - "You won't Learn Anything From Me I Don't Want You To Know", Steven Cohen rich and strange - the yuppie horror film, Barry Keith Grant would you take your child to see this film? - the cultural and social work of the family-adventure movie, Peter Kramer.

Ecce Homo, Ain't (Ar'n't) I a Woman, and Inappropriate/d Others: The Human in a Post-Humanist Landscape

Abstract: The whole tale might fit together at least as well as the plot of Enlightenment humanism ever did, but I hope it will fit differently, negatively, if you will. I suggest that the only route to a nongeneric humanity, for whom specificity-but emphatically not originality-is the key to connection, is through radical nominalism. We must take names and essences seriously enough to adopt such an ascetic stance about who we have been and might yet be. My stakes are high; I think "we"—that crucial material and rhetorical construction of politics and of history-need something called humanity. It is that kind of thing which Gayatri Spivak called "that which we cannot not want." We also know now, from our perspectives in the rippedopen belly of the monster called history, that we cannot name and possess this thing which we cannot not desire. Humanity, whole and part, is not autochthonous. Nobody is self-made, least of all man. That is the spiritual and political meaning of poststructuralism and postmodernism for me. "We," in these very particular discursive worlds, have no routes to connection and to noncosmic, nongeneric, nonoriginal wholeness than through the radical dis-membering and dis-placing of our names and our bodies. So, how can humanity have a figure outside the narratives of humanism; what language would such a figure speak?

Nobody likes a rat: On the willingness to report lies and the consequences thereof

Abstract: We investigate the intrinsic motivation of individuals to report, and thereby sanction, fellow group members who lie for personal gain. We further explore the changes in lying and reporting behavior that result from giving individuals a say in who joins their group. We find that enough individuals are willing to report lies such that in fixed groups lying is unprofitable. However, we also find that when groups can select their members, individuals who report lies are generally shunned, even by groups where lying is absent. This facilitates the formation of dishonest groups where lying is prevalent and reporting is nonexistent.

Millions Now Living Will Never Die: Cultural Anxieties About the Afterlife of Information

Abstract: This article examines cultural anxieties surrounding the life and death of online data. Through the examination of a wide range of discourses, including “lifestyle” news articles, online user comments, essays and books by novelists and engineers, and the websites of information management services, I argue that death online—defined as the persistence of informatic remainders after the death of the human user—reveals how networked data are constructed as both an authentic duplicate of identity and as a threat to personal identity that must be managed. Because humans are understood as finite and mortal, while data are immortal and everlasting, the “life” formed out of online data is understood as beyond any possible control of the user. With the death of the user, the perceived connection between the user and data is revealed as a contingency rather than a necessity. Information is produced as autonomous. It is nearly identical to yet separate from the user; it belongs to nobody except, perhaps, the network itself.

Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Everyday Life in an In-Between City

Abstract: 1. "Welcome to Hillbrow you will find your people here" 2. "Here I am nobody:" Rethinking Urban Governance in the Age of Mobility 3. Between Pharaoh's Army and the Red Sea: Social Mobility and Social Death in the Context of Women's Migration 4. Turning the Home Inside-Out: Private Space and Everyday Politics 5. The Station, Camp, and Refugee: Xenophobic Violence and the City 6. Ways of Seeing: Migrant Women in the Liminal City

The orchestration of feeling: stillness, spirituality and places of retreat

Abstract: In his richly evocative novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor offers a fascinating account of everyday life in Britain. He begins by chronicling the soundscape of the contemporary city, tracing its rhythms of activity and the associated polyphony. In the narrative that unfolds, McGregor is attentive not only to harmony and dissonance, but also to diminution and absences in the urban chorus, and to what he describes as the ‘miracle of silence’. He first locates this quietness just before dawn, in that ‘rare and sacred dead time, sandwiched between the late sleepers and the early risers’.2 In this moment, he writes that:Everything has stopped.

'Nobody has 257 friends'. Strategies of friending, disclosure, and privacy on Facebook

Abstract: In the present article, we discuss norms of friendship and privacy on social network sites by examining strategies of privacy among users, arguing that tacit norms of friendship are now more easily observed. The article is based on a quantitative survey among 1710 Internet users in Denmark, among them 970 Facebook users, subsequent focus group meetings with 20 respondents and finally access to their profiles for a period of twelve months. In line with the research literature on social network sites, our study shows that users’ “friends” consist of a variety of strong, weak and even latent ties and thus supports notions such as social divergence and networked publics, suggested by danah boyd. Regarding privacy issues, we distinguish between level of access to information on participants’ profiles and the way participants perform on their profiles, the level of intimacy. As to the first level most respondents seem to emphasize whom they friend, while they do not distinguish among friends once they are in; everybody is treated equally. As to the second level, our research deviates from findings suggesting that in particular young people are rather unaware of risks, as we can identify what we call a “cautious sensible” strategy in all age groups that allows users to be cautious without being too self-restrictive. Regarding the status updates, we identify a schism between saying and doing, as our respondents tend to downgrade small talk in the focus groups, whereas their profiles reveal that they in fact do engage in small talk. We understand this seeming paradox in a generic and linguistic perspective, using the notions of phatic and indexical communication, respectively, in an analysis of the status updates on the profiles.

The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism among the Primates

Abstract: The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism among the PrimatesFrans de Waal The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism among the Primates New York: W W Norton, 2013Innovation in the absence of human purpose is literally meaningless, which is to say that it defies interpretation, measurement and evaluation; it is pointless change for its own, which is to say for nobody's sakeInnovation, in order to have meaning, must be designed to meet some identifiable challenge, to solve some particular problem or to achieve some expressible purpose-even if that purpose is nothing more than delaying or deflecting the inevitable and "buying time" until a better alternative can be foundIn striving to meet some positive objective or escape some negative fate, innovation must have some ethical, moral, political, economic, social or even technological means and ends in mind Only when it stops being an exercise in wheel-spinning and begins to move down a particular road in some discernible direction can its proponents even try to justify it as an honourable or at least a useful direction Only then can it be properly understood and assessed What's more, only when it is put in a definable evaluative framework can its opponents properly criticize it In short, innovation must be about somethingA singular problem in the contemporary world is that establishing ethical and moral frameworks for governance has become exceedingly difficult The old banalities such as honesty and integrity don't get us very far, and the vapid encouragements to be cheerful and upbeat in our work are beyond annoying We lack much in the way of a set of principles to judge policies other than admonitions to be efficient and responsive when we do whatever it is that we do The best we seem to come up with is some version of a market-driven imperative and the importance of good people doing what the majority of good people among our customers and clients wish to be done"Innovation should be about something, it must be for some people and against others"Though its origins can be traced to an age of 'innocence' a rather splendid new narrative can be formed in which human beings not only act in concert for mutual benefit, but also become capable of learning consciously to choose goodNow, don't get me wrong! I am not in principle opposed to "good people"; I just feel deprived of any coherent view of good policies or the standards of goodness according to which we could determine the what, in fact or theory, counts as "good" This is important because, in the absence of an authentically universal system of philosophical truths and a generally valid set of specific social norms that can be deduced from them, innovation is likely to be contemplated and designed within a specific cultural context and, more importantly, devised to serve specific economic, political and social interests Since those interests are almost surely to be in latent opposition or in manifest conflict with others, any pretense to objectivity by innovators is bound to be false on its face Since innovation should be about something, it must also be for some people and against others In short, unless we are content to decide public policy by public opinion polls or, more likely, by the influence of organized interest groups, we have some responsibility to ponder whether public sector innovation is guided by anything other than narrow, utilitarian self-interest in political systems where equal access to governmental decision makers is far from guaranteedPeople in and out of government and the public service, of course, have not been insensitive to the need to see innovation in a moral, which is to say in a political context We have understood the need and made valiant efforts to come up with universal systems of right and wrong that embrace many cultural traditions and material interests Evidence of these efforts are everywhere and few are more grand, eloquent and comprehensive as the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights …

Risk-Return Analysis: The Theory and Practice of Rational Investing

Abstract: The two most important words Harry Markowitz ever wrote are "portfolio selection." In 1952, when everyone in the stock market was looking for the next hot stock, as a doctoral candidate, he proposed to look at many, diverse stocks--a portfolio. He laid the first cornerstone of Modern Portfolio Theory and defended the idea that strategic asset growth means factoring in the risk of an investment. More than 60 years later, the father of modern finance revisits his original masterpiece, describes how his theory has developed, and proves the vitality of hisrisk-return analysis in the current global economy. Risk-Return Analysis opens the door to agroundbreaking four-book series giving readers a privileged look at the personal reflections and current strategies of a luminary in finance. This first volume is Markowitz's response to what he calls the "Great Confusion" that spread when investors lost faith in the diversification benefits of MPT during the financial crisis of 2008. It demonstrates why MPT never became ineffective during the crisis, and how you can continue to reap the rewards of managed diversification into the future. Economists and financial advisors will benefit from the potent balance of theory and hard data on mean-variance analysis aimed at improving decision-making skills. Written for the academic and the practitioner withsome math skills (mostly high school algebra), this richly illustrated guide arms you with: Concrete steps to accurately select and apply the right risk measures in a given circumstance Rare surveys of a half-century of literature covering the applicability of MPT Empirical data showing mean and riskmeasure used to maximize return in the long term PRAISE FOR RISK-RETURN ANALYSIS "Harry Markowitz invented portfolio analysis and presented the theory in his famous 1952 article and 1959 book. Nobody has greater insight into the process than Harry. No academic or practitioner can truly claim to understand portfolio analysis unless they have read this volume." -- Martin J. Gruber, Professor Emeritus and Scholar in Residence, Stern School of Business, New York University "Surveying the vast literature inspired by [Markowitz's] own 1959 book has stimulated an outpouring of ideas. He builds on the strengths and limitations of the important papers in order to come up with a position that should silence a lot of critics." -- Jack Treynor, President, Treynor Capital Management "The authors do not overlook various criticisms of the MPT, but rather address them convincingly. This excellent book is an essential reference for academics and practitioners alike." -- Haim Levy, Miles Robinson Professor of Finance, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel "Markowitz's groundbreaking publications on Portfolio Selection prescribe a methodology that a rational decision-maker can follow to optimize his investment portfolio in a risky world...Thischallenging new book clarifies many common misconceptions about modern portfolio theory." -- Roger C. Gibson, author of Asset Allocation and Chief Investment Officer, Gibson Capital, LLC "Contain[s] great wisdom that every economist, portfolio manager, and investor should savor page by page." -- Andrew W. Lo, Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor and Director, Laboratory for Financial Engineering, MIT Sloan School of Management "[Markowitz's] monumental work in the 1950s would be sufficient to qualify as a lifetime achievement for most mortals, but he keeps spouting fresh insights like lightning flashes year after year, and penetrating ever deeper into the theory, mathematics, and practice of investing." -- Martin Leibowitz, Managing Director, Global Research Strategy, Morgan Stanley "Risk-Return Analysis is a wonderful work in progress by a remarkable scholar who always has time to read what matters, who has the deepest appreciation of scientific achievement, and who has the highest aspirations for the future." -- Enterprising Investor (CFA Institute)

“Nobody Loves a Fat Man”: Masculinity and Food in Film Noir

Abstract: This article uses the proverb “nobody loves a fat man” to examine the interplay between representations of masculinity, physique, and “appetite” in American culture during the first half of the twe...

Equity and difference in centralized policy

Abstract: The paper focuses on the promise of equity that underlies centralized evaluation policies and its relation to difference, or in other words to the singularity of the subject. I defend that without taking the issue of difference into consideration, there is no education, and that the unique subject is what is aspired by education. The analyses rely on recent Brazilian evaluation policy as object. Large-scale testing policies, like much of public policy, are built on the premise that equity is both possible and desirable. First, I try to demonstrate that this is a fallacious promise and then question its desirability. I consider the fact that such a promise even if not delivered does not make it harmless. It creates effects of power while making the idea that ‘no children [should be] left behind’ hegemonic. Naturalizing the existence of a ‘behind’ creates a demarcation line without which it would not be feasible to define this ‘behind’. I argue that the only way to ensure that nobody is excluded is to blur ...

Essentialism in Biology

Abstract: Essentialism in philosophy is the position that things, especially kinds of things, have essences, or sets of properties, that all members of the kind must have, and the combination of which only members of the kind do, in fact, have. It is usually thought to derive from classical Greek philosophy and in particular from Aristotle’s notion of “what it is to be” something. In biology, it has been claimed that pre-evolutionary views of living kinds, or as they are sometimes called, “natural kinds”, are essentialist. This static view of living things presumes that no transition is possible in time or form between kinds, and that variation is regarded as accidental or inessential noise rather than important information about taxa. In contrast it is held that Darwinian, and post-Darwinian, biology relies upon variation as important and inevitable properties of taxa, and that taxa are not, therefore, kinds but historical individuals. Recent attempts have been made to undercut this account, and to reinstitute essentialism in biological kind terms. Others argue that essentialism has not ever been a historical reality in biology and its predecessors. In this chapter, I shall outline the many meanings of the notion of essentialism in psychology and social science as well as science, and discuss pro- and anti-essentialist views, and some recent historical revisionism. It turns out that nobody was essentialist to speak of in the sense that is antievolutionary in biology, and that much confusion rests on treating the one word, “essence” as meaning a single notion when in fact there are many. I shall also discuss the philosophical implications of essentialism, and what that means one way or the other for evolutionary biology. Teaching about evolution relies upon narratives of change in the ways the living world is conceived by biologists. This is a core narrative issue.

Amory's Disillusionment in This Side of Paradise

Abstract: As many critics observe, nobody has described the despair of the twentieth century better than F. Scott Fitzgerald. He came to prominence as a great American novelist in the 1920s, a period dominated by the postwar novel. In This Side of Paradise , Fitzgerald successfully depicts the disillusionment of the protagonist, Amory Blaine, a young romantic egotist in a quest of forming a “personage” in which he has to face various dilemmas and losses. Critics have adopted different approaches, such as feminist theory, gender studies and realism to analyze Amory’s psychic dilemmas. This paper adopts a different approach using early theories of Freud in dealing with the protagonist’s disillusionments concerning his personal life.

Towards infinity and beyond : branding, reputation, and the critical reception of Pixar Animation Studios

Abstract: American author and journalist Jonah Lehrer declared in 2012 that Pixar Animation Studios was ‘the one exception’ to the oft-cited maxim that, in Hollywood, ‘nobody knows anything.’ Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times spoke in similar terms in 2008, writing that, ‘critics and audiences are in agreement on one key thing: Nobody makes better movies than Pixar.’ Thirteen consecutive global box office successes and scores of industry awards would seem to suggest that Lehrer and Goldstein are correct. Yet it is important to recognise that such statements invariably refer to something intangible, something beyond a particular Pixar film or selection of films. There exists, in other words, a widely held set of meanings and associations about what the studio represents, and to whom. This thesis argues that this set of meanings and associations – Pixar’s brand identity – is far from the fixed and unambiguous entity it is often seen to be. If the studio has come to be seen as guarantee of quality family entertainment, when did this notion become widespread? Have the parameters for ‘quality’ and ‘success’ remained constant throughout its history? I demonstrate for instance that Pixar benefited considerably from Disney’s wavering reputation from the late-1990s onwards. I approach branding as a discursive process, and one that brand producers sometimes have little control over, contrary to the implicit claims of most marketing literature. Broadly chronological in structure, the thesis traces the development of the studio’s reputation by drawing on Barbara Klinger’s approach to historical reception studies. Individual chapters focus on how Pixar was discussed by critics and journalists at specific moments or in specific contexts, as it evolved from a computer graphics company to become the most celebrated film studio of all time. Ultimately, this is a case study of the cultural work involved in the making of a brand or an auteur, and how these meanings can shift over time.

"But what if nobody's going to sit down and have a real conversation with you?" Service user/survivor perspectives on human rights

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss human rights assessment and monitoring in psychiatric institutions from the perspectives of those whose rights are at stake. It explores the extent to which mental health service user/psychiatric survivor priorities can be addressed with monitoring instruments such as the WHO QualityRights Tool Kit. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on the outcomes of a large-scale consultation exercise with people with personal experience of detention in psychiatric institutions across 15 European countries. The consultation took place via one focus group per country and extended to a total of 116 participants. The distinctive characteristic of this research is that it imparts an insider perspective: both the research design and the qualitative analysis of the focus group discussion transcripts were done by a social researcher who shared the identity of service user/survivor with the participants. Findings – The paper highlights human rights issues which ar...

"Nobody Knows You're A Dog": Pervasive Anonymity and the Networked Public Sphere

Abstract: ions of the public. Second, I’ll broach the idea of accountability in interpersonal interaction, and how that accountability promotes both adherence to public norms of discursive behavior and legitimacy. In contrast, the Internet, by enabling disembodied and non-spatial interaction, allows for more uninhibited forms of behavior and self-

The Vital Role of Conflict Interpreters

Abstract: 1. Introduction Conflict is part of our lives, and has been since the beginning of time. As Carl von Clausewitz once said: "war is simply a continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means," (Von Clausewitz 1976, p. 605). Conflict does not know boundaries, cultures or languages. But, how can Afghans or Iraqis understand soldiers, international journalists or NGO workers from Western countries if neither group speaks the other's language? Language is a very powerful tool used to control, dominate and manipulate others (Bahadir 2010) and it plays an indispensable role in conflict zones. Weapons deployed in conflict areas are not only military in nature, but also political, economic, ideological, cultural (Baigorri-Jalon & Fernandez-Sanchez 2010) and, of course, linguistic. Lines of communication between two parties require language mediators able to bring different cultural and linguistic realities to create a common ground of understanding because "there is no point in the U.S.A. declaring conflict on Iraq without ensuring that the Iraqis and the rest of the world 'hear' that declaration" (Baker 2006, p. 2). In order to achieve that common ground, the presence of a specific mediating figure is required in different stages during core stages of conflict. Baigorri-Jalon (Baigorri-Jalon 2011) summarises these stages as follows: * Preparatory Process: Diplomacy, intelligence and mobilisation * Warfare: On land, at sea and by air: --Communication among military personnel --Interaction with local civilians and prisoners --Control of occupied territories --Evacuation of non-combatants * End of Hostilities: Peace negotiations, demobilisation, area and civilian rehabilitation * Settlement of Responsibilities: Military tribunals It is, however, not only for logistical reasons that interpreters are needed. They also play a key role in basic survival: "I saw a battalion badly bloodied once because nobody could understand what an excited Korean was trying to say--that a strong Red force was lying in ambush, just beyond the hill." (Parker in Muller 1981, p. 362) Even though the role of interpreters in conflict settings seems to be of obvious importance once an individual gets to know more about how they contribute, the truth is that their tasks and role remain largely unknown, not only to laypeople, but also to their interpreter peers. Fortunately, we cannot help but note that more and more scholars (Askew & Salama-Carr 2010; Baigorri-Jalon 2003, 2010; Baigorri-Jalon & Fernandez-Sanchez 2010; Dragovic-Drouet 2007; Footitt 2010; Kahane 2007; Moerman 2008, Monacelli 2002; Palmer 2007; Schweda 2010; Tipton 2011; Thomas 1997, 2003; Tryuk 2012; Wiegand, 2000) are researching different aspects and settings specifically related to conflict. Some examples are studies based on Nazi concentration camps, the Balkans War, Bletchley Park, humanitarian missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Cuban Missile Conflict, the Cold War, Panmunjom meetings, or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. As I personally consider it necessary to shed some light on this type of interpreting figure, this paper, as part of a larger Ph.D. dissertation, is the study of this kind of face-to-face interpreting, characteriaed by its dialogic and mediating nature. 2. Interpreters in Conflict-Related Settings throughout History If we analyse the history of interpreting, one notices how indispensable the role of conflict interpreters has always been. Dating back to the 15th century, we find the famous case of Malinche, an extremely useful interpreter between the first Spanish settlers and the American indigenous people. She played a key role in Cortes' process of colonisation and the resulting conflicts in the New World. …

On Coliva's Judgmental Hinges

Abstract: Annalisa Coliva's Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty, and Common Sense does On Certainty, and Wittgenstein generally, a great service: it is the first in-depth study of Moore and Wittgenstein that places On Certainty within current epistemology. By this I mean, that it discusses its content, reception and repercussions in the technical terms of current epistemology and in the midst of current epistemologists. But it also manages to do this without losing the non-specialist reader to the often bewildering jargon of epistemology, and without viewing hinge certainty as an epistemic certainty. There is much that I agree with in Coliva’s reading of On Certainty, but her view of hinges as both judgments and norms seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of On Certainty. In what follows, I will be mainly concerned with that view, but will conclude by adding a few words on Coliva's rejection of foundationalism in On Certainty. In her Introduction, Coliva refers to my classification of the main four 'readings' of On Certainty: the framework; the transcendental; the epistemic; and the therapeutic readings1, and situates herself as a framework reader, but with a difference. She agrees that Wittgenstein takes hinge certainties to be rules rather than empirical propositions, and that they are therefore not truth-evaluable (2010, 6-7), but she finds this problematic: to say that 'Here is my hand' is neither true nor false when I'm holding it in front of my eyes in optimal cognitive circumstances sounds 'extremely weird', and some hinges, such as '"Nobody's ever been on the moon" appear false to us' (2010, 7-8). The weirdness felt by Coliva is reminiscent of Moore’s discomfort upon hearing Wittgenstein's 'puzzling assertion that 3+3=6 (and all rules of deduction, similarly) is neither true nor false' (MWL 73, 80). But Wittgenstein himself warned that this would be ‘apt to give an uncomfortable feeling’ (MWL 73). Wittgenstein’s point in barring truth-evaluability from grammatical rules, of which mathematical ones2, is to insist on their normative (as opposed to descriptive or evaluative) status: '"3+3=6" is a rule as to the way we are going to talk ... it is a preparation for a description' (MWL 72). So that grammatical rules (or as Coliva prefers to call them: meaning constitutive rules) can be said to be preparation for, or antecedent to judgment, rather than themselves (expressions/instances of) judgments. However – perhaps because of the 'weirdness' in saying that 'Here is my hand' is not true as I'm holding it in front of my eyes in

The Legacy of Assotto Saint: Tracing Transnational History from the Gay Haitian Diaspora

Abstract: INTRODUCTIONThis essay uses Michel-Rolph Trouillot's notion of power and the production of history as a starting point to explore the ways that Assotto Saint (1957-1994), a gay Haitian American who was once a well-known player in the Black gay and AIDS activist cultural movements in the United States, is remembered and written about in contemporary venues.1 I argue that the politics of remembrance pertaining to Saint's cultural work and activism has significant consequences for our understanding of late twentieth century social and cultural movements in the United States as well as gay Haitian history. I explore the fact that Saint's work has fallen out of popularity since his death in 1994, except in limited identitarian, mostly literary venues. The silences surrounding his work thatI describe in this essay are peculiar considering that Saint not only had important social connections with artists who are well-known today, but also, unlike artists with less access to financial resources, he left behind a huge archive of materials housed in the Black Gay and Lesbian Collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as well as a rich and prolific corpus of published work. By offering a re-reading of these archival materials and placing them in their socio-historical contexts, I also make a restorative gesture to commit Assotto Saint's legacy to public memory. Through investigating the life, activism, and cultural work of this self-proclaimed diva of the Haitian diaspora, this essay ultimately attempts to offer a dynamic understanding of the movements Saint took part in as well as a re-reading of the dominant narratives about Haiti and gay sexuality.I begin with a biographical sketch of Assotto Saint to highlight the connections between events in his life and major historical occurrences in Haiti and the United States. The subsequent section provides an overview of the range of his cultural work in terms of medium, genre, and theme. I also emphasize Saint's efforts as an institution builder for the Black gay cultural movement as well as the broader AIDS activist cultural movement. This overview builds a foundation that allows us to understand why Assotto Saint has not received the same kind of posthumous recognition as his contemporaries. His work has been recognized, primarily by circulating his essay "Haiti: A Memory Journey" in recent anthologies of Caribbean writing; this, however, has also in some ways reduced the complexity of the transnational critiques fiercely presented by this historical figure in his lifetime. In the final sections of the paper, I describe what is at stake in the "practice" of remembering Assotto Saint with all his complexities, thus rectifying the essentializing and silences that have surrounded his literary contributions and activism.The Life and Death of Assotto Sainti was born on all angels daybut throughout my lifei've been a bitch out of hell/don't nobody show up at my funeralto call me nice or some shit like that/save it for turncoat cocksuckerswho on their deathbedsopen their mouths wide to claim god/-Assotto Saint, "Devils in America"Assotto Saint died of AIDS-related complications in New York City on June 29, 1994. The week of Saint's death, the city swelled with queers: drag queens, gays, lesbians, transgender people, and AIDS activists among others. Drawn by an act of celebration-the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in Greenwich Village-and of mourning and frustration-a decade and a half of the ongoing AIDS crisis-the gathering of queers in New York City coincided with Saint's death in the uncanny way that so many of his major life events paralleled the social and political changes of his time. The poet, playwright, performer, and activist was born in Les Cayes, Haiti as Yves Francois Lubin on October 2, 1957, the same week that the infamously repressive, US-backed dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier was elected president. …

Psychological Fictionalism, and the Threat of Fictionalist Suicide

Abstract: 1. Introduction"Eliminativism" is an ambiguous term. When applied to psychological entities, like beliefs and desires, "eliminativism" (as in "eliminative materialism") usually denotes the view that the entities widely referred to do not exist. This position-championed most famously by Paul Churchland (1979, 1981) and Patricia Churchland (1986)-is an error theory regarding psychological entities. In this context, the verb "eliminate" denotes the act of banishing something from our ontology, we realize that there is no place for beliefs and desires in our mature world view. It is not the intention of this paper to assess the truth of psychological eliminativism; despite its being a radical and fairly unpopular view, I will simply assume that there are respectable arguments in its favor. (For defense of the view, beyond the Churchlands, see Rorty [1970]; Stich [1983]; Ramsey et al. [1990]; Taylor [1994],)'In other contexts, by contrast, eliminativism is a theoretical option one may or may not choose to adopt after one has embraced the error theory. Here, the verb "eliminate" denotes the act of banishing something from our language, we decide that most uses of the terms "belief," "desire," etc., should be dropped.Thus one might be a psychological eliminativist twice over: one might decide that there are no such things as beliefs and desires, and then one might decide that most uses of these terms should be jettisoned. Let us call these views "ontological eliminativism" and "linguistic eliminativism," respectively. It is so natural to assume that the latter form of eliminativism should accompany the former that many of the classic statements of eliminative materialism fudge the matter.2 Yet the two can come apart. One can be an eliminativist in the first sense-endorsing an error theory for certain classes of psychological entity-yet resist eliminativism in the second sense-allowing that talk of these entities should be maintained. This combination of views, which may be called "psychological factionalism," will be explored in this paper. I will delineate a number of different kinds of psychological factionalism. My goal is not to advocate any of these theories, though the final section of this paper is devoted to rebutting a charge that may be leveled at psychological factionalism: the threat of fictionalist suicide.As a preliminary, let me explain what I mean by saying that according to linguistic eliminativism most uses of the offending term should be dropped. The Churchlands liken folk psychology to talk of vitalism (Paul Churchland 1981, 71, 89; Patricia Churchland 1981, 100-101)-something about which one should be an error theorist. Yet nobody claims that all appearances of the phrase "vitalistic life force" must be dropped from our discourse-even true sentences like "There is no such thing as vitalistic life force" and "Pasteur designed experiments to test whether there is a vitalistic life force." Rather, the linguistic eliminativist about vitalism argues for the abolition of all utterances that commit the speaker to the existence of vitalistic force. Assertion of these sentences do not carry this commitment. Nor does the mere utterance of the sentence "Vitalistic life force exists" commit one to the existence of vitalistic force. One might, for example, utter this sentence without assertoric force, if asked to provide an example of a false four-word sentence; or one might say it as a joke, or as a line in a play. As W.V. Quine once put it: "The parent who tells the Cinderella story is no more committed to admitting a fairy godmother and a pumpkin coach into his own ontology than to admitting the story as true" (Quine 1961, 103). The linguistic eliminativist about psychological entities argues for the abolition of all utterances that commit the speaker to the existence of certain psychological entities.Characterizing linguistic eliminativism in this way does not succeed in distinguishing it from the fictionalist alternative, for the fictionalist about psychological entities also shuns utterances that commit the speaker to the existence of these entities. …

The Royal Lie

Abstract: According to the Greek philosopher Plato “[…] if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying the rulers of the State […] may be allowed to lie for the public good” (The Royal Lie). To investigate whether The Royal Lie may foster cooperation in public goods provision we experimentally study centralized manipulations of contribution feedback. We find that a uniform feedback exaggeration does not increase cooperation and is disapproved once it is disclosed. An individual exaggeration, however, that gives nobody the feeling of being a sucker sustains cooperation on a high level.

Builder of the Bridge of Dreams

Abstract: Govind Purushottam Deshpande (1938-2013), more popularly known as GPD, feared nobody, certainly not sacred cows. He was a socialist, a scholar in China Studies, Sanskrit and Marathi, a poet and a playwright, and taught history, politics, and foreign policy. GoPu, as he was known in the Marathi world, also wrote on the contesting ideas that constitute the modern Marathi intellectual universe. Four of his contemporaries write about the EPW columnist, classical music lover and witty conversationalist.

Commentary: Nobody loves a critic: Edmund A Parkes and John Snow’s cholera

Abstract: Science isn’t about being right. It is about convincing others of the correctness of an idea through a methodology all will accept using data everyone can trust. New ideas take time to be accepted because they compete with others that already have passed the test. New thinking needs a strongly favoured methodology and an iron-clad application if it is to triumph, replacing the old. Journal critics are the first line of defence against ideas and research projects that seem promising but have yet to be vetted, their methods analysed carefully. Despite the importance of that service, the critic’s role is typically disparaged because—let us be frank here— nobody likes critics. If they praise something they’re assumed to be sycophants and if they disparage published work they’re dismissed as merely grumblers. History is not kind to critics. Its writers typically dismiss where they do not simply ignore those whose careful reviews argue caution in the face of works destined to become, in the future, classics. Think, here, Prince Peter Kropotkin whose naturalist studies focused upon the limits of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory and the direction in which research based upon it would be best directed. Only today—more than 130 years later—is the importance of his critique being acknowledged. There are good critics, of course, even great ones. The best are not only prominent in their field but also stylish essayists whose careful insights educate the general and the professional reader alike. Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin is a current example, an essayist who enfolds each review within an erudite recital of the state of the science being discussed. The result leaves the reader (and author) gasping: ‘I wish I had said that.’ As an example of a good critic unfairly dismissed by history think Edmund A Parkes, the British physician and researcher who reviewed John Snow’s famous 1855 opus, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. In a seven-page, approximately 7800-word essay, Parkes carefully considered and found wanting Snow’s argument that cholera (and plague, and typhoid fever) was solely waterborne. Although the myth of Snow’s brilliance insists his critics were wrong, a careful reading of Parkes’ concerns insists that the myth of Snow is overstated. Yes, cholera is a waterborne disease. But were we to read Snow’s work with attention but without foreknowledge we, too, would find its argument incomplete. This review of the 19th century debate over cholera has more than historical significance. It pits a simplistic, focused explanation against one that was broad and multifactorial. And, too, it demands attention be paid to the researcher’s methodologies and their sufficiency, not just results. Finally, it pits the myth of the lone researcher against the reality of science as a complex, communal, interactive process. In a time of rapidly evolving, epidemic zoonotics, the lessons of that earlier debate are as contemporary as the evolving state of the mutating coronavirus that so concerns us today.

Nobody There: Acousmatics and An Alternative Economy of Meaning in Latin American Poetry of the 1970s

Abstract: Nobody There: Acousmatics and an Alternate Economy of Meaning in Latin American Poetry of the 1970s

Why Photography Matters

Abstract: Photography matters, writes Jerry Thompson, because of how it works -- not only as an artistic medium but also as a way of knowing. It matters because how we understand what photography is and how it works tell us something about how we understand anything. With these provocative observations, Thompson begins a wide-ranging and lucid meditation on why photography is unique among the picture-making arts. Thompson, a working photographer for forty years, constructs an argument that moves with natural logic from Thomas Pynchon (and why we read him for his vision and not his command of miscellaneous facts) to Jonathan Swift to Plato to Emily Dickinson (who wrote "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant") to detailed readings of photographs by Eugene Atget, Garry Winogrand, Marcia Due, Walker Evans, and Robert Frank. He questions Susan Sontag's assertion in On Photography that "nobody" can any longer imagine literate, authoritative, or transcendent photographs. He considers the money-fueled expansion of the market for photography, and he compares ambitious "meant-for-the-wall" photographs with smaller, quieter works. Forcefully and persuasively, Thompson argues for photography as a medium concerned with understanding the world we live in -- a medium whose business is not constructing fantasies pleasing to the eye or imagination but describing the world in the toughest and deepest way.

Hawthorne’s Perspectival Perversity: What if “Wakefield” Were (About) a Woman?; or, Credo Quia Absurdum

Abstract: Although "Wakefield" opens as a leisurely mnemonic act, it turns into an intensely emotional affair. However, the stance of moral indignation and, indeed, condemnation adopted in many readings of this classic tale seems to be a monological trap, an interpretive ride along Einbahnstrasse. The present close re-reading draws on the combined appreciation of perversity as (i) formal figuration in which the bearings of the original are reversed, (ii) attitudinal disposition to proceed against the weight of evidence (the so-called 'being stubborn in error'). Building on this logic, the paper offers a transcriptive anti-type response to Hawthorne's title. It is meant as a detour of understanding and a reclamation of a seemingly obvious relational and denotative proposition. Inasmuch as "Wakefield" is a distinctive rhetorical performance, foundationally a story about story-telling, its title can be naturalized as identifying the story-teller. Even if this does not come across as lucius ordo, it is argued that the order of reappropriative and be-longing signification is that of Mrs. rather than--as is commonly believed--that of Mr. Wakefield. Informed by object permanence and a peculiar looking bias, "Wakefield" proves to be her-tale rather than his-story. As a secret sharer and a would be-speaking gaze, the wife turns out to be a structural and existential pivot of the narrative. More broadly, Mrs. Wakefield can be appreciated as coarticulator of a ventriloquistic logos and choreographer of a telescopic parallactic vision. Unintentional challenge to both the heresy of paraphrase and the aesthetics of astonishment, this is ultimately to proffer a radical Shakespearean/Kantian re-cognition that in certain spheres there obtains nothing absolutely 'moral' or 'immoral', and it is only a particular perspectival discourse that ma make it so. Keywords: narrative framing--phenomenology--female gaze--motivated irrationality--Prodigal Son --Penelope [So] fixed a gaze, that ... the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. (Hawthorne [1850] 1983c: 171-172) For a woman to be called a Jezebel is every bit as bad as for a man to be called Ahab. (Henson 2009: 9) Nobody needs convincing that it makes a world of difference whether one leaves another for a day, a week, a month or presumably/apparently ad aeternum, which is to say 'forever'. "Wakefield" is an exceedingly poignant story about an unwarranted and potentially interminable aorist transaction of marital severance and separation, one that happens overwhelmingly at the expense of the wife. This "sketch of singular power" (Poe [1842] 1984a: 574) may be a disturbing experience to read on account of how the ignoble husband is not really subjected to any sustained pressure and how in the end he is not in any way punished for his transgression. What is more, he is not even really made to feel properly guilty and apologetic (let alone repentant) and the wife's anguish and trauma are not adequately (let alone fully) acknowledged. The wedded couple lived in London. The man, under pretence of going a journey," "took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife" ... dwelt upwards of twenty years.... [A]fter so great a gap in his matrimonial felicity ... he entered the door one evening, quietly, as from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. (Hawthorne [1835] 1982a: 298) (2) As author Daniel Stem (1996: 65) transcribes the story's non-ethical dimension, it is admittedly one of the "cruelest" and "ugliest" narratives on record. As such, it seems to excite conversational indignation across the board. (3) In simplest terms, the self-congratulatory ease with which readers can rectify for themselves the ostensible underempathic shortcomings--finally, the frustrated sense of common justice--goes some way towards explaining the story's hold on popular imagination and its enduring resonance. …