Suchergebnisse

This essay proposes thinking about civic wounds as assemblages. It draws on the historical case of antebellum Cincinnati, where the physical contagion of cholera entangled with the social contagion of slavery in ways that articulated across both cultural and physical domains of activity at once. Taking this approach reveals the ways rhetoric's pharmakon mediates the operations of delivery within assemblages; I further suggest that the intersecting figural movements of catachresis and metonymy account for the granular pharmacological work of a given wound/assemblage's historical emergence. Along the way we see how both rhetoric and liberal democracy are toxic enterprises wherein goods and bads commingle in fateful ways.

Defines the "international community" & discusses its responsibilities vis-a-vis UN-led humanitarian interventions. The role of the UN Charter & international law is examined in terms of mandates as well as limitations on interventions in countries where gross human rights violations are taking place. Similarly, the advantages & shortcomings of diplomacy & sanctions are considered, especially given the proclivity of many Western countries to resort to simplistic demonization. The problematics & questionable effectiveness of coercion are analyzed also. Last, double standards on the part of prospective intervening powers too often have appeared to cast humanitarian interventions as motivated by self-interest & selectivity, as is exemplified by the starkly contrasting Western responses to crises in Rwanda & Kosovo. Such double standards severely undermine the UN's credibility as an equitable humanitarian instrument. K. Coddon