Michael Pollan is a faculty member of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley; a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine; and past executive editor for Harper's magazine. Pollan's first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991), and his more recent, The Botany of Desire (2001), are among his many works that examine the intersections between science and culture. In them we see a remarkable power to discern the intertwining ecological, political, and moral valences of problems that are at once contemporary and deeply rooted in Western history and culture. We also see in his books and articles important questions about writing: to whom are we as committed researchers trying to speak, and how can we be both deeply serious about ideas and courses, and yet clear, and even engaging, at the same time?
Renato Pellegrini's second novel, Asfalto, was published in 1964 and created a firestorm of controversy. It is one of the few novels ever banned in Argentina for reasons of "obscenity" (rather than politics) and the censorship case for this novel went all the way to the Argentine Supreme Court. As a result of the devastating legal procedures, Pellegrini stopped writing and has been relegated to the periphery of the Argentine and Spanish-American literary canon, his work remaining relatively unknown and undervalued. In this presentation, I will demonstrate why this novel and its author demand greater critical attention from researchers on the literatures of Spanish America, particularly those interested in issues of gender and sexuality and the Latin American literary canon. Although Manuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña (1976) is often popularly cited as the first Argentine novel to treat issues of homosexuality openly from a relatively positive and affirming perspective, Pellegrini's Asfalto, pre-dating Puig's novel by twelve years, is much more revolutionary in terms of content and attitude. The novel narrates a young man's process of discovery of same-sex attraction as he leaves the provinces and enters the homosexual "underworld" of Buenos Aires in the early 1960s. Unlike earlier works that present homoerotic desire in disastrous or shameful terms, Asfalto provides the reader with perhaps the first case in Hispanic literature in which the fictional world is made up of characters who are able to express their homosexuality freely and without guilt. Further, it is also interesting to note that Puig's now infamous use of informational footnotes in El beso de la mujer araña is foreshadowed by Pellegrini's inclusion in his novel of several explanations of the nature of homosexual desire with references to scientific theory and research into the field, as well as a listing of famous homosexuals throughout history. Pellegrini's Asfalto is a groundbreaking novel that reveals the youthful promise of a literary talent that was, sadly, silenced by prejudice and fear. In addition to its literary merit, this novel also serves as a vitally important cultural document for understanding the nature of homosexual subjectivity in a specific Hispanic context, providing historical insight into the relationship between center and periphery and the power structures that have maintained and still maintain marginalized social groups in positions of inferiority.
On the day of her party in June 1923, Clarissa Dalloway worries about her attraction to beauty in the face of a political and humanitarian crisis: He [Richard] was already halfway to the House of Commons, to his Armenians, his Albanians, having settled her on the sofa, looking at his roses. And people would say, "Clarissa Dalloway is spoilt." She cared much more for her roses than for the Armenians. Hunted out of existence, maimed, frozen, the victims of cruelty and injustice (she had heard Richard say so over and over again)—no, she could feel nothing for the Albanians, or was it the Armenians? But she loved her roses (didn't that help the Armenians?). (MD 120) This passage resonates with our contemporary situation, evoking as it does the recent fighting in Kosovo, which was in the news when I proposed an MLA paper on the topic of this special issue, as well as recent writings that explicitly or implicitly link beauty with social justice. By way of answering my title question—"How do we keep desire from passing with beauty?"—I want to discuss several works that reiterate Clarissa's question, especially in relation to the crisis of responsibility that is said to follow in the wake of postmodern theories and cultural criticism.
The political interpretation behind the Barro-Gordon model hinges on two assumptions: Inflation and output growth have distributional effects, and policymakers' distributional desires can be represented by a quadratic loss function in terms of output and inflation. In this article we have examined these two assumptions. Our main results are (1) inflation and output growth have significant effects on the size income distribution, (2) if policymakers are only concerned with the income distribution, no inflationary bias will arise; and (3) the Barro-Gordon model may represent a political model in which political parties care about both the size income distribution and output growth. However, the inflationary bias implied by the Barro-Gordon model should not be associated with the political color of the policymakers.
Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ; Who is not captivated by tales of Islanders earnestly scanning their watery horizons for great fleets of cargo ships bringing rice, radios and refrigerators - ships that will never arrive? Of all the stories spun about the island peoples of Melanesia, tales of cargo cult are among the most fascinating. The term cargo cult, Lamont Lindstrom contends, is one of anthropology's most successful conceptual offspring. Like culture, worldview and ethnicity, its usage has steadily proliferated, migrating into popular culture where today it is used to describe an astonishing roll-call of people. It's history makes for lively and compelling reading. The cargo cult story, Lindstrom shows, is more significant than it at first appears, for it recapitulates in summary form three generations of anthropological theory and Pacific studies. Although anthropologists' enthusiasm for the notion of cargo cult has waned, it now colors outsiders' understanding of Melanesian culture, and even Melanesians' perceptions of themselves. The repercussions for contemporary Islanders are significant: leaders of more than one political movement have felt the need to deny that they are any kind of cargo cultist. Of particular interest to this history is Lindstom's argument that accounts of cargo cult are at heart tragedies of thwarted desire, melancholy anticipation and crazy unrequited love. He makes a convincing case that these stories expose powerful Western scenarios of desire itself—giving cargo cult its combined titillation of the fascinating exotic and the comfortably familiar.
Ng Chin Pang. ; Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. ; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-91). ; Abstracts in English and Chinese. ; Acknowledgments --- p.i ; Abstract --- p.iii ; Chapter Chapter1 --- Introduction --- p.1 ; Chapter Chapter2 --- Theories on Sex and the Emergence of Sexual Identity --- p.4 ; Chapter 2.1 --- "Origins and Development on the Concept of Sex in the ""Western"" World" ; Chapter 2.1.1 --- Augustine's Notion on Sexual Desire ; Chapter 2.1.2 --- Protestant Theology of Sex ; Chapter 2.1.3 --- "Emergence of ""Western"" Sexual Identity" ; Chapter 2.2 --- The Concept of Sexual Desire in China ; Chapter 2.2.1 --- The Discourse of Sexual Desire in Late Imperial China ; Chapter 2.2.2 --- Transformation of Sexual Identity in Modern China: Male Homosexuality as the Verdict ; Chapter Chapter3 --- Queer Theory- a Post-colonial Perspective --- p.38 ; Chapter 3.1 --- Postcolonial Theory as a source of Theology Discourse ; Chapter 3.1.1 --- From Colonialism to Post-colonialism ; Chapter 3.1.2 --- Building a Hybridized Sexual Ethics ; Chapter 3.2 --- Queer Theory as a Source of Theology Discourse ; Chapter 3.2.1 --- Queer Theory and Queer Politics ; Chapter 3.2.2 --- Queering the Socially Constructed Sexual Identities ; Chapter Chapter4 --- A Post-colonial Sexual Theology --- p.59 ; Chapter 4.1 --- The Modes of Discourse ; Chapter 4.1.1 --- Transgressive Metaphors ; Chapter 4.1.2 --- Hybrid Sexual Theologies ; Chapter 4.2 --- A New Framework about Sexual Desire ; Chapter 4.2.1 --- Building our Relations in Erotic Desire ; Chapter 4.2.2 --- Beyond Sexuality and Spirituality Dichotomy ; Chapter 4.3 --- Conclusion: Building an Inclusive Community ; Bibliography --- p.85
This paper aims at exploring the various factors which could play a synergic role in the formation of a cluster system to support the development of higher education services as a competitive business endeavour. It proposes that Porter's cluster dynamics might be applied to education in Cyprus in order that it might grow a regionally competitive sector within the Region. This is a goal set out in the Government's Strategic Development Plan (1999-2003) and is brought into clearer focus with the accession of Cyprus to the EU in May 2004. Indicative evidence of clustering is presented based on the UK's Research Assessment Exercise and policy issues are discussed for the Cyprus Government. ; peer-reviewed
Rock Hudson never starred in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock; but if he had, Neil Bartlett's Mr Clive and Mr Page (1996) would almost certainly have made some use of the historical coincidence. Bartlett's novel uses the case of Rock Hudson to frame a narrative that is, among many other things, a fairy tale of the unsanitized, pre-nineteenth-century kind, laden with Hitchcockian significance, not least in the novel's overt reference to Rebecca. Bartlett spins the reader a yarn that embraces, challenges, and finally disorients conventional positionality, forcing a reconsideration of the import of the narrative that extends beyond its immediate frames into an intertextuality that adumbrates the novel's political interventions.
The purpose of this study was to determine the current knowledge of a random sampling of Illinois school district superintendents regarding the new Illinois Charter Schools Law. An additional purpose of this study was to ascertain the extent of the desire of a random sample of Illinois school district superintendents for inservice activities or further information about the same law. A survey containing 12 charter school issues was developed by the author and was used to determine the extent of the knowledge and desire for further knowledge on the Illinois Charter Schools Law. A random sampling of 201 Illinois district superintendents was mailed the survey, and 160 responses were utilized in this study representing a response rate of 80%. The surveys were tabulated for average (mean) responses, as well as the most frequent (mode) responses. Results revealed that Illinois superintendents had a good understanding of the intent of charter schools, but limited understanding of the specific issues in the new law. Results also showed a moderately low desire for further information or inservice at this time. The survey information was disaggregated by regions of the state, district enrollment, district configuration, and regional identification. The surveys revealed only minor differences when disaggregated by regions of the state. More noticeable differences emerged when examining the scores by district enrollment with the larger school district superintendents generally scoring higher mean scores on knowledge and inservice desires. Considering the results of the survey, several recommendations were made. Each Regional Office of Education (ROE) and Intermediate Service Center (ISC) should have a staff member trained about charter schools and the charter application process. The Illinois State Board of Education should disseminate additional information to potential charter sponsors about the start-up of charter schools and the many processes involved. The Illinois State Legislature should examine the current Charter Schools Law to see if it can be modified to further benefit schoolchildren in the state. A more comprehensive study of the superintendents' knowledge and desire for further information about the Illinois Charter Schools Law should be undertaken by either the Illinois State Board of Education or one of the state administrators' organizations.
The surge of mass communication through technological advancement has raised the question of people's apprehension to receiving the information they desire via electronic communication. Receiver Apprehension lessens a person's ability to process certain types of information (Schumacher, B.K., & Wheeless, L.R., 1997) A representative sample at a mid-sized, mid-Western university was asked to complete a 27-item questionnaire using a Likert-type scale; 375 questionnaires were distributed. A model of the Receiver Apprehension Test (RAT), developed by L.R. Wheeless in 1975, was used for the measurement. However, seven added questions dealt with the Internet. The researcher was testing the hypothesis that people with high RA believe citizens, especially children, should be restricted while accessing the Internet and people with low RA believe access should be granted without governmental or filtering restrictions. It was found that the majority of sample participants were low in apprehension and preferred not to have governmental or filtering restrictions.
Propast komunizma u bivšoj Jugoslaviji izazvao je lavinu osobnih i političkih pitanja o značenju hrvatske povijesti, tradicije i identiteta za Hrvate svugdje u svijetu. Usred potresnih promjena koje je uzrokovao rat, Hrvati u domovini hrvali su se da (ponovo) izgrade i (ponovo) zamisle novu/staru državu, i da u tom procesu (re)kreiraju i sebe. Na sličan način i Hrvati u dijaspori, koji su se tijekom godina konstruirali kao etnička grupa unutar kanadskog političkog i multikulturalnog krajolika, suočavali su se s učinkom tih promjena na to što sad značiti biti Hrvat. Članak istražuje politiku prepoznavanja i reprezentiranja za Hrvate kroz analizu (re)produkcije osjećaja želje i prezira između dijaspore i domovinskih Hrvata. Istraživanje (provedeno u Kanadi i Hrvatskoj) pokazuje visoku napetost u uzajamno izgradujučem odnosu Hrvata iz dijaspore i središta njihovih željnih pogleda, slobodne Hrvatske u kojoj njezini građani sudjeluju u "proiz'odnji" i "povratku" povijesne hrvatske države. Na primjer, Hrvati u domovini novoljko se uključuju u politiku identiteta dijaspore temeljem njihovog novog statusa kao članova nove hrvatske države i potpuno odbacuju nostalgične slike dijaspore. Odbijajući pogled dijaspore, domovinski Hn'ati zapravo otupljuju napore dijaspore da se pozitivno identificira i/ili sudjeluje u (re)invenciji domovine, potcrtavajući paradokse koji karakteriziraju stanje mnogostrukih lokacija i pripadnosti. ; The collapse of communism in the former Yugoslavia has sparked an avalanche of personal and political questions for Croatians everywhere on the meaning of Croatian history, traditions and identity. In the midst of tumultuous changes brought about by the war, homeland Croatians have been struggling to (re)build/(re)imagine a new/old state and, in the process, reinvent themselves. Similarly, diaspora Croatians, who have, over the years, constructed themselves as an ethnic group within the Canadian political and multicultural landscape, have been grappling with the impact of these changes on what is now means to be Croatian. This paper investigates the politics of recognition and representation for Croatians through an analysis of the (re)production of sentiments of desire and disdain between diaspora and homeland Croatians. This multi-sited research demonstrates that the mutually constitutive relationships of diaspora Croatians and the focus of their desiring gaze, a free Croatia where its citizens are participating in the "production" or "recovery" of the historic Croatian state, are highly contested. For example, Croatians in the homeland have been reluctantly drawn into the politics of diaspora identity by virtue of their newfound status as members of the new Croatian state and outright reject the nostalgic imaginings of the diaspora. By spuming the gaze of the diaspora, homeland Croatians, in effect, blunt diasporic efforts to positively identify with and/or participate in the (re)invention of the homeland, underscoring the paradoxes that characterize the condition of multiple location and belonging.
International audience ; [Historically, two issues share those interested in the settlement of nations: the desire for children there is a private sphere, or public? And do policies influence the behavior of individuals or couples behaviors? The examples show the effectiveness of incentives on demographics, but it seems that many leaders within the European Union have difficulty recognizing him.] ; Historiquement, deux questions partagent ceux qui s'intéressent au peuplement des nations : le désir d'enfant relève-t-il de la sphère privée, ou publique ? Et les politiques exercent-elles une influence sur les comportements individuels ou les comportements des couples ? Les exemples montrent l'efficacité des mesures incitatives sur la démographie, mais il semble que nombre de dirigeants, au sein de l'Union européenne, aient du mal à le reconnaître.
International audience ; [Historically, two issues share those interested in the settlement of nations: the desire for children there is a private sphere, or public? And do policies influence the behavior of individuals or couples behaviors? The examples show the effectiveness of incentives on demographics, but it seems that many leaders within the European Union have difficulty recognizing him.] ; Historiquement, deux questions partagent ceux qui s'intéressent au peuplement des nations : le désir d'enfant relève-t-il de la sphère privée, ou publique ? Et les politiques exercent-elles une influence sur les comportements individuels ou les comportements des couples ? Les exemples montrent l'efficacité des mesures incitatives sur la démographie, mais il semble que nombre de dirigeants, au sein de l'Union européenne, aient du mal à le reconnaître.
In fighting against the risk of the globalization of hazardous food production it is essential to think about psico-sociocultural dimensions of consumerism, whose premises rest on the imperative of immediate satisfaction of desires. Departing from the thesis that multiplication of desires along with their complete and immediate fulfillment unavoidably provoke the overestimating of them, the paper analyzes the «mad cow syndrome» as the tip of the iceberg in the context of our relation with food consumption. In this sense, the matter of collective safety does not imply solely the searching for effective solutions against probable food contagion, but eminently to shed light over the dangerous consequences of a way of living in which everything is reduced to consumption. ; Para combatir el riesgo de una globalización de la nocividad alimentaria es indispensable reflexionar sobre las dimensiones socio-culturales y psíquicas del consumismo, cuyas premisas son el imperativo de la satisfacción inmediata de los deseos. Partiendo de la tesis de que la multiplicación de los deseos y del anuncio de su cabal realización provoca inevitablemente la inflación de los mismos, el artículo analiza el síndrome de las vacas locas como punta de un iceberg y banco de prueba de nuestra relación con el consumo alimenticio. En este sentido la cuestión de la seguridad como ansia de impunidad colectiva no implica solamente la búsqueda de remedios eficaces contra los posibles contagios alimenticios, sino que impone, en primer lugar, esclarecer las consecuencias destructivas de una forma de vida humana en la que todo se reduce al consumo. ; Para combater o risco de uma globalização perniciosa da produção de alimentos é indispensável refletir sobre as dimensões socioculturais e psíquicas do consumismo, cujas premissas repousam sobre o imperativo da satisfação imediata de desejos. Partindo da tese que a multiplicação dos desejos e suas realizações imediatas provoca superestimação dos mesmos, o artigo analisa a síndrome da vaca louca como ponta ...
In a remarkable article unfairly forgotten today Pierre Nora wrote in 1966 that in America: 'It is not a great historian who establishes in their truth a set of facts which predate him, and on which he can have nothing, in relation to other sets of facts already established on which he can no more; but the one that puts the whole of national history at the heart of an interpretation that continues to be just when the facts it highlights have ceased to be true. "(Nora 66.) With all that the formula may have a lapidary, excessive and even a simplification, it nevertheless raises the question of the function of the American historian, whose role, beyond individual singularities — and many — seems to be less than "(re) say the past" than to answer, after politics and theologians, the question: "What is an American?" [1] However, when politics is somehow set as accomplished from the outset, and only the economy is left to progress, historian becomes the one who "speaks" about the past only to confirm the future. History then ceases to be a challenge to be prescriptive or "confirmatory" — as we talk about the renewal of the promises of the baptism and it assesses the degree of realisation of the founding project, namely the achievement of political democracy. Perhaps for that reason it was possible to say that America did not have an ideology but was one. ; Dans un remarquable article injustement oublié aujourd'hui Pierre Nora écrivait en 1966 qu'en Amérique : « N'est pas grand historien celui qui établit dans leur vérité un ensemble de faits qui lui sont antérieurs, et sur lesquels il ne peut rien, par rapport à d'autres ensembles de faits déjà établis sur lesquels il ne peut rien davantage ; mais celui qui jette sur l'ensemble de l'histoire nationale le vaste filet d'une interprétation qui ne cesse d'être juste quand les faits qu'elle met en lumière ont cessé d'être vrais. » (Nora 66.) Avec tout ce que la formule peut avoir de lapidaire, d'excessif et même de simplificateur, elle n'en pose pas moins la question de ...
