Suchergebnisse

Explores representations of civil society & the modern welfare state expounded by Michel Foucault & Jurgen Habermas to demonstrate how they offer different ways of thinking politically about today's challenges, particularly in terms of resistance. The historical context & current usage of the concept of civil society are examined, along with how Habermas links civil society to an understanding of criticism by viewing it as a privileged locus of criticism outside of governance. Conversely, Foucault's civil society only emerges in the context of a governable domain of the social. Further, Habermas's notion of reconstructive criticism encompasses the idea of civil society in service of emancipatory social science, while Foucault uses genealogies in which concepts are to be interrogated regarding their use in practical systems. It is contended that an alternative framework based on the concept of civil society does not adequately address problems of welfare state relations. While Habermas elaborates on the terms of contemporary political reason, Foucault's more productive approach questions concepts & challenges individuals to reconsider their limits. 54 References. J. Lindroth

There have been two major criticisms of research on vigilance decrement: (1) that there are few troublesome decrements in the real world and (2) that laboratory research on vigilance, often done with comparatively simple tasks, generalizes poorly to complex tasks in operational situations. The first criticism is supported by research that has failed to find vigilance decrement in operationally relevant situations. The second criticism involves the relationship between basic and applied research. Applied scientists who face immediate practical problems should solve them with quasi-realistic simulation. Simulation-based research has limited generality, however, and should not be seen as a substitute for more general solutions that come from basic research and the variables and laws that it establishes.

Proverbs, Persian -- History and criticism

Companies adopt marketing practices to delight their customers, generate revenues and profits, and to create customer relationships. However, companies may focus on their selfish motives of growth and may ignore consumer welfare and social welfare. Marketers are criticized for such practices and for the negative impact created on the society. The practices include high prices of products, deceptive practices, high pressure selling, harmful or unsafe products, planned obsolescence, poor service to disadvantaged customers, and negative impact of celebrities in marketing communications. Adverse impact on society includes false wants and materialism, too few social goods, and cultural pollution. Marketers are accused of harming and reducing competition. In the era of social marketing, companies should respect social concerns of various stakeholders and should maintain a balance between their own objective of growth and long-term social requirements. This will result in mutual trust and in sustaining the society.

The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that the period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. 'Fifteenth-Century Studies' offers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Following the customary opening article on the current state of fifteenth-century drama research, essays treat such topics as poetry as a source for illustrated German prose, the St. Edith picture cycle in Salisbury, the flourishing of French history; and Spanish schools of translators. Other essays treat poems from the 'Gruuthuse' songbook; Louis XI and pilgrim's dress, Robert Henryson's 'Moral Fabilles,' violence in English romances, Jews' presence through absence in Vicente Ferrer's 'Sermons,' and Conrad Buitzruss's recipe collection in Manuscript Clm 671 (Munich). Book reviews conclude the volume. Contributors: Edelgard E. DuBruck, James H. Brown, Mary Dockray-Miller, Jean Dufournet, Rocío del Río Fernández, Bas Jongenelen and Ben Parsons, Jennifer Lee, John Marlin, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Daniel Salas-Días, Elizabeth I. Wade-Sirabian. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita of French and Humanities at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama

In his 1998 'Peace Prize Speech', Martin Walser complained that authors today are judged primarily for their public statements whilst their literary works are disregarded. This may indeed be especially true for Walser himself, who has the dubious honour of having had two media debates in unified Germany named after him: the 'Walser–Bubis debate', or 'first Walser debate', which followed his polemic on the way National Socialism is remembered in the same speech, and the 'second Walser debate' concerning his novel Tod eines Kritikers (Death of a Critic, 2002) regarding the question of anti-Semitism in this book. His 1998 novel Ein springender Brunnen (A Gushing Fountain) is closely linked to the first debate: the author's speech can be read as his response to the reception of his autobiographical novel about a childhood and youth during the Nazi period. Literary works, therefore, do form a part of the discussions about the author, but in his opinion reviewers and commentators put contemporary social and political concerns 'before aesthetics' and thus neglect the specific quality of literature. Walser's critique of memory in the Peace Prize Speech runs parallel to this distinction: the 'spirit of the time' demands political correctness and creates a hegemonic discourse about the past, which in Walser's view is opposed to personal and literary memory but also to what he terms German 'normality'. In this way aesthetics and politics are uncomfortably intermingled in Walser's controversial speech. The author's insistence, however, that works of art should be viewed on their own terms is of course one with which literary scholars tend to agree. Questions of aesthetic autonomy are especially pertinent and sensitive when a fictional text depicts a politically contested past. The following analysis asks, then, what the specific qualities of Walser's literary form of memory are and whether his aesthetic approach is indeed free from memory politics. ; peer-reviewed

Turkish poetry and Kurds poets; Turkey; history and criticism

This paper has three goals:(1) to define the anthropological subfield of human behavioral ecology (HBE) and characterize recent progress in this research tradition; (2) to address Joseph's (2000) critique of HBE from the perspective of an advocate of that field;•and (3) to suggest features that make for effective criticism of research traditions. (1) HBE attempts to understand intra- and inter-societal diversity in human behavior as the product of species-wide adaptive goals which must be realized in highly diverse, socio-environmental circumstances. Theoretically, HBE draws selectively from neo-Darwinism and its cultural-evolutionary analogs, from micro-economics, and from elements of formal decision and game theory. Applications generally use simple, formal models as heuristic devices for generating testable hypotheses about resource use, reproductive and social behavior, and life history traits. (2) Using Kuhn's (1977) and McMullin's (1983) criteria for assessing progress in a research tradition, I examine Joseph's review of HBE, indicating the several points on which we agree and the greater number for which I believe her criticisms are misplaced or in error. (3) Finally, I try to describe general features of effective critique, in the sense of critical commentary that enables the advance of scientific understanding through collective scholarly effort. Such criticism will be necessary if we are to sort out the relative strengths and potential contributions of the several research traditions in human ecology (e.g., cultural ecology, historical ecology, political ecology, etc.).