One of harm reduction’s most salient features is its pragmatism. Harm reduction purports to distinguish itself from dominant prohibitionist and abstinence-based policy paradigms by being grounded in what is realistic, in contrast with the moralism or puritanism of prohibition and abstention. This is reflected in the meme “harm reduction works”, popular both in institutional and grassroots settings. The idea that harm reduction is realistic and effective has meant different things among the main actors who seek to shape harm reduction policy. (...) Drawing on scholarly literature about harm reduction, as well as examples from recent harm reduction advocacy efforts in relation to drug policy in Canada, this paper argues that harm reduction distinguishes itself through a unique “way of knowing”. Grassroots harm reduction advocates, particularly as they argue through human rights frameworks, do more than simply make claims for the provision of particular services—like needle exchange, safe consumption sites, safe supply and the like—on the basis that these are realistic paths toward the health and well-being of people who use drugs. Rather, as they marshal lived experience in support of these policy changes through peer-driven initiatives in contexts of prohibition, they make particular claims about what constitute valid, methodologically rigorous evidence bases for action in contexts where policies to date have been driven by ideology and have developed in ways that have excluded and marginalized those most affected from policymaking. In doing so, they advocate for the centrality of people who use drugs not only in policy-making processes, but in evidence production itself. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S42-S45, March‐April 2022.

Co-production, in the field of mental health, aims to bring together academic and clinical researchers and those with lived experience. Often, research projects informed by this methodology involve the meeting of opposing attitudes, whether to the legitimacy of psychiatry, determinants of mental ill health, or the most appropriate interventions. This has meant that whilst some have reported positive experiences of co-production, many people with lived experience of mental ill health, sometimes referred to as ‘experts by experience’ (EbE), report harms which (...) have taken place or been perpetuated during co-produced research projects. In the literature, nearly always, this is understood as a kind of epistemic injustice in Miranda Fricker's sense. In this paper, I argue that whilst Fricker's view does provide a plausible explanation of what's at play, we can gain more insight into the structural factors which exclude EbE by applying a framework of epistemic oppression. By highlighting the systemic and structural factors which work to keep certain knowers and their contributions out of our collective epistemic resources, we begin to understand the enormity of the task required to redress injustices in our knowledge production systems. (shrink)

While proponents of social egg freezing argue that it is liberating for women, opponents contest that the technology provides an individualist solution to a social problem. This article comprises personal and academic reflections on the debate on social egg freezing from four young women studying reproductive technologies. We challenge the promotion of social egg freezing as an empowering option for women and question cultural assumptions about childbearing, the disclosure of risk, failures to consider sexual diversity and socioeconomic status, and the (...) expansion of the market in reproductive tissues. (shrink)

This article argues that, despite the efforts to expunge race from the European political sphere, racism continues to define the sociality of Europe. The post-war drive to replace race with other signifiers, such as culture or ethnicity, has done little to overcome the effects of the race idea, one less based on naturalist conceptions of hierarchical humanity, and more on fundamental conceptions of Europeanness and non-Europeanness. The silence about race in Europe allows European states to declare themselves non-racist, or even (...) anti-racist, while at the same time continuing to imply an inherent European superiority, which determines both international relationships and relationships with those seen as `in but not of Europe' within its domestic spheres. The article concludes by asking what the repercussions of this are in the context of the contemporary discourse on cohesion and integration that replaces multiculturalism as a possible way of living together in a Europe always less homogeneous in reality than it is commonly imagined to be. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe Spatial Learning Task of Lhermitte and Signoret is an object-location arbitrary associative learning task. The task was originally developed to evaluate adults with severe amnesia. It is currently used in populations where the memory system either is not yet fully developed or where it has been compromised (e.g. epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, electroconvulsive therapy, cerebrovascular disease and dementia). Normative data have been published for paediatric cohorts and for older adults, however no data exist for the intervening adult years.MethodHere, we (...) address this gap, collecting normative data from 101 adults aged 18–45.ResultsOur data indicate that performance on the Spatial Learning Task is not influenced by age, gender, level of education or overall IQ. Less than 10% of the variance in learning scores is associated with variability in verbal memory. Ninety percent of participants achieved perfect scores on two successive trials (T2Cr) within five or fewer trials on the Spatial Learning Task. A T2Cr score of 6 is suggestive of impairment and a T2Cr score of 7 or more is statistically abnormal.ConclusionThese data expand the clinical utility of the Spatial Learning Task in the adult population. Future work should examine performance in lower IQ cohorts, including intellectual disability, and explore sensitivity to disease factors such as laterality of mesial temporal lobe damage. (shrink)

O presente artigo analisa o crescimento das instituições escolares salesianas no Antigo Sul de Mato Grosso no final do século XIX e início do XX e o ideal de um processo civilizador educacional, empreendido pela Igreja Católica, protagonizado pela congregação salesiana a qual atuou para assegurar prerrogativa educacionais ao passo que o Estado brasileiro laicizava-se. Essa análise terá como suporte bibliográfico a obra de Riolando Azzi (1982) que em sua obra Os salesianos no Brasil à luz da História, destaca o (...) papel exercido pelo Manual Civilizador dos salesianos. Como aporte teórico, destacamos a obra de Norbert Elias (1994), O processo civilizador. (shrink)

Radiation therapy therapists face challenging daily tasks that leave them prone to high attrition and burnout and subsequent deficits in performance. Here, we employed an accelerated alpha-theta neurofeedback protocol that is implementable in a busy medical workplace to test if 12 RTTs could learn the protocol and exhibit behavior and brain performance-related benefits. Following the 3-week protocol, participants showed a decrease in subjective cognitive workload and a decrease in response time during a performance task, as well as a decrease in (...) desynchrony of the alpha electroencephalogram band. Additionally, novel microstate analysis for neurofeedback showed a significant decrease in global field power following neurofeedback. These results suggest that the RTTs successfully learned the protocol and improved in perceived cognitive workload following 3 weeks of neurofeedback. In sum, this study presents promising behavioral improvements as well as brain performance-related evidence of neurophysiological changes following neurofeedback, supporting the feasibility of implementing neurofeedback in a busy workplace and encouraging the further study of neurofeedback as a tool to mitigate burnout. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHedonic deficits are linked to protracted dysphoric affect in depression, a disorder characterised by emotion context insensitivity. Recent findings from daily life studies contradict the ECI view. This study longitudinally investigated DA across laboratory and daily life contexts and the conditions associated with discrepancies in DA reactivity. Thirty-three healthy controls and 41 adults with major depressive disorder provided responses to neutral and positive films viewed in the laboratory and daily events recorded over the course of three days using ecological momentary (...) assessment methodology. The current study reports on participants’ appraisals of films and events and their subsequent DA, both rated individually after each task and daily event. Despite large group similarities in appraisals of the positive film and life events, MDDs appraised the neutral film and neutral life events as less important and less pleasant (film: d =... (shrink)

Despite the resistance from radical antiracist formations, autonomously organised by racialized minorities and migrants themselves, that can be witnessed in many spaces, the success with which antiracism has been both appropriated and relativized by the state as well as hegemonic activist voices poses a significant threat. The politics of diversity and the consensus around the notion that western societies are post-race contribute to portraying the critique of racism from people of colour as inaccurate, alienating and counter-productive to the achievement of (...) social cohesion. The necessity of dismantling the idea of race as suggested by antiracist activists and scholars has been subverted in the deconstruction of the experience of racism by an ‘antiracialist’—rather than a more radical antiracist—agenda intent on relativizing the struggle against racism as one among many. The consequence of this in the context of postracialism is for racism itself to be departicularized and dissociated from its historical roots. Antiracism needs to reclaim the risk, that Goldberg argues is inherent to it, and rescue it from being universalised into meaninglessness. (shrink)

Researchers of the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership at Brown University sought to improve an understanding of the ethical challenges of field researchers with place-based communities in environmental studies/sciences and environmental health by disseminating a questionnaire which requested information about their ethical approaches to these researched communities. NEEP faculty sought to gain actual field guidance to improve research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate students and faculty in environmental sciences/studies. Some aspects of the ethical challenges in field studies are not (...) well-covered in the literature. More training and information resources are needed on the bioethical challenges in environmental field research relating to maximizing benefits/reducing risks to local inhabitants and ecosystems from research; appropriate and effective group consent and individual consent processes for many diverse communities in the United States and abroad; and justice considerations of ensuring fair benefits and protections against exploitation through community-based approaches, and cultural appropriateness and competence in researcher relationships. (shrink)

This article seeks to re-examine two major assumptions in mainstream anti-racist thought of the post-war era. These are culturalism, on the one hand, and human rights on the other, both of which have been offered as potential solutions to the ongoing problem of racism. I argue that both fail to cope with racism as it has been institutionalized in the political and social structures of European societies because they inaccurately theorize ‘race’. Racism is treated as an individual attitude born of (...) prejudice and ignorance and not as a political project that emerged under specific conditions within the context of the European nation-state. A re-examination of this legacy of modernity and a questioning of the structuring principles of anti-racism is necessary in the current context of racism against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics, Ahead of Print. ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to assess if a relationship existed between audiologists’ perceptions of moral distress, occupational wellbeing, and patient-practitioner orientation.DesignThe Moral Distress Thermometer, Health and Safety Executive Management Standards Indicator Tool and Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale was sent out to all audiologists registered with the professional body Audiology Australia.Study sample: A total of 43 audiologists completed the questionnaires.ResultsUsing a multiple linear regression model there was no evidence of a relationship between patient-practitioner orientation and (...) either moral distress or occupational wellbeing. However, an association between higher moral distress and lower occupational wellbeing was demonstrated. The occupational wellbeing subscales of ‘managerial support’, ‘peer support’, ‘relationships’, ‘role’, and ‘change’ were strongly associated with poorer scores on moral distress.ConclusionFor our sample of audiologists, ethical conflict appeared to be linked to reduced job satisfaction. There is a need to consider ways of providing supportive organisational structures in which ethical conflicts can be openly discussed and negotiated in order to improve occupational wellbeing in the profession. (shrink)

“Additional needs children” is a term often used in the education system to describe children with school-based problems characterised by learning difficulties arising from academic, social and emotional stressors including, but not limited to, clinically diagnosed Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD). What has seldom been investigated is what biopsychosocial characteristics and other common comorbid behaviours are associated with academic learning difficulties. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between anxiety levels (Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale- Parent Report), autism traits (...) (Autism Spectrum Quotient – Child Version) and sleep quality (Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children) in ‘additional needs children’ with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Language Impairment or Mixed Diagnosis without an intellectual disability. The results demonstrated that the ASD group reported more impairments associated with comorbid anxiety and sleep compared to the other clinically diagnosed groups. Similarly, greater anxiety level was positively associated with a greater number of autism traits and poorer sleep quality regardless of diagnostic group. This suggests that higher anxiety symptoms are a core biomarker of children who often first come to their teacher’s attention with reading and learning difficulties (i.e. “additional needs”), irrespective of the primary cause of school-based problems. (shrink)

In order to fulfill ABET requirements, Northern Arizona University’s Civil and Environmental engineering programs incorporate professional ethics in several of its engineering courses. This paper discusses an ethics module in a 3rd year engineering design course that focuses on the design process and technical writing. Engineering students early in their student careers generally possess good black/white critical thinking skills on technical issues. Engineering design is the first time students are exposed to “grey” or multiple possible solution technical problems. To identify (...) and solve these problems, the engineering design process is used. Ethical problems are also “grey” problems and present similar challenges to students. Students need a practical tool for solving these ethical problems. The step-wise engineering design process was used as a model to demonstrate a similar process for ethical situations. The ethical decision making process of Martin and Schinzinger was adapted for parallelism to the design process and presented to students as a step-wise technique for identification of the pertinent ethical issues, relevant moral theories, possible outcomes and a final decision. Students had greatest difficulty identifying the broader, global issues presented in an ethical situation, but by the end of the module, were better able to not only identify the broader issues, but also to more comprehensively assess specific issues, generate solutions and a desired response to the issue. (shrink)

The term ‘identity politics’ is used to refer to a wide range of political movements. In this paper, we look at the theoretical ideas underpinning two strongly, mutually opposed forms of identity politics, and identify some crucial differences between them. We critically compare the identitarian ideology of the New Right with feminist standpoint theory, focusing on two issues: relativism and essentialism. In carrying out this critical comparison we illuminate under-theorized aspects of both new right identitarianism and standpoint theory; demonstrate how (...) the two are distinct; reveal the depth and pervasiveness of the new right ideology’s flaws; and show what a coherent left-wing identity politics could look like. (shrink)

Interview on the commodified body with Donna Dickenson by Alana Cattapan.

The Meno, one of the most widely read of the Platonic dialogues, is seen afresh in this original interpretation that explores the dialogue as a theatrical presentation. Just as Socrates's listeners would have questioned and examined their own thinking in response to the presentation, so, Klein shows, should modern readers become involved in the drama of the dialogue. Klein offers a line-by-line commentary on the text of the Meno itself that animates the characters and conversation and carefully probes (...) each significant turn of the argument. "A major addition to the literature on the Meno and necessary reading for every student of the dialogue."--Alexander Seasonske, Philosophical Review "There exists no other commentary on Meno which is so thorough, sound, and enlightening."-- Choice Jacob Klein was a student of Martin Heidegger and a tutor at St. John's College from 1937 until his death. His other works include Plato's Trilogy: Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, also published by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditional epistemological thinking? Third, do the answers to these questions (...) raise serious problems for feminist epistemologies? We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology – feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism – are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Thus, (some) feminist epistemologies provide a plausible way of understanding how (some) knowledge might be socially constructed. (shrink)

Les oeuvres de Gersonide (Levi b. Gershom ou Gerson, Leon de Bagnols, philosophe juif provencal 1288-1344) portent essentiellement sur quatre domaines: les commentaires qu'il a consacres aux commentaires d'Averroes, les questions philosophiques et theologico-philosophiques (livres I a IV, VI des Guerres du Seigneur), les commentaires biblioques et des travaux astronomiques (dont le livre V des Guerres). Dans les trois premiers domaines, la maniere dont il a travaille, l'ordonnancement des idees et leur mise en oeuvre sont ici compares a ceux qui (...) furent utilises par ses contemporains scolastiques. Alors que son activite astronomique a amene Gersonide a la frequentation des savants de la cour du Pape a Avignon, il ne cite, dans les oeuvres etudiees, aucun auteur ni aucun texte latin. La maniere dont Gersonide fait de la philosophie, sa methode d'etude et de resolution des problemes, sa conception de l'exegese biblioque comme science et les procedes adoptes dans les commentaires bibliques le rapprochent cependant du monde latin intellectuel de son temps. Ce sont ces ressemblances, mais aussi les dissemblances, qui sont discutees ici. (shrink)

In this paper I make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology in three steps. My first step is to explain hinge epistemologies as contemporary epistemologies that take Wittgenstein’s work in On Certainty as their starting point. My second step is to make three criticisms of this literature as it currently stands. My third step is to introduce feminist epistemologies, which argue that social factors like race and gender affect what different people and groups justifiably believe, and argue that developing (...) a feminist hinge epistemology is both plausible and desirable. (shrink)

In this article, the authors examine how the debate over women's executions during the nineteenth and early twentieth century funneled and in various ways processed the contrary demands of gender and capital justice. They show how encounters with capital punishment both reflected and reinforced dominant interpretations of womanhood and as such contributed to the intricate web of normative strictures that affected all women at the time. At the same time, however, the often heated debates that accompanied such cases pried open (...) some of the contradictions inherent in the dominant interpretations and, as a result, came to challenge the boundaries that separated not only women from men but also women from each other. Rather than viewing gender as a unidirectional influence on capital punishment, the authors argue that gender is best approached as an evolving social category that gets reconstructed, modified, and transformed whenever it is implicated in social practices and public debates. (shrink)

This is the third draft of a paper that aims to clarify the apparent contradictions in the views presented in certain standards and other specifications of health informatics systems, contradictions which come to light when the latter are evaluated from the perspective of realist philosophy. One of the origins of this document was Klein’s discussion paper of 2005-07-02 entitled “Conceptology vs Reality” and the responses from Smith, as well as the several hours of discussions during the 2005 MIE meeting (...) in Geneva. (shrink)

Note: Paper to appear in special issue of the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, on the evolution of consciousness //// Klein, Nguyen, & Zhang (in press) argued that the evolutionary transition from respondent to agent during the Cambrian Explosion would be a promising vantage point from which to gain insight into the evolution of organic sentience. They focused on how increased competition for resources -- in consequence of the proliferation of new, neurally sophisticated life-forms -- made (...) awareness of the external world (in the service of agentic acts) an adaptive priority. The explanatory scope of Klein et al (in press) was limited to consideration of the conscious apprehension of externally sourced content – i.e., content delivered from the sensory registration of objects occupying phenomenal space. But consciousness – at least for humans -- takes its objects from internal as well as external sources. In the present article we extend their analysis to the question of how internally sourced content (i.e., mental states) became the object of conscious apprehension. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the relationship between social epistemology and relativism in the context of feminist epistemology. I do this by focusing on one particular branch of feminist epistemology - a branch known as standpoint theory - and investigating the connection between this view and epistemic relativism. I begin by defining both epistemic relativism and standpoint theory, and by briefly recounting the standard way that the connection between these two views is understood. The literature at the moment focuses on (...) an aspect of standpoint theory called the epistemic advantage thesis, and on an aspect of relativism which has been called equality. I then show that the connection between relativism and standpoint theory actually turns on a different aspect of standpoint theory, known as the standpoint thesis, and on an aspect of relativism which has been called non-neutrality. I argue that shifting our attention to these other aspects reveals that standpoint theory is clearly and unavoidably relativist, but that this isn’t a problem - standpoint theory can capture everything that it set out to, even on a relativist understanding of the view. (shrink)

Censorship in the area of public health has become increasingly important in many parts of the world for a number of reasons. Groups with vested interest in public health policy are motivated to censor material. As governments, corporations, and organizations champion competing visions of public health issues, the more incentive there may be to censor. This is true in a number of circumstances: curtailing access to information regarding the health and welfare of soldiers in the Kuwait and Iraq wars, poor (...) health conditions in Aboriginal communities, downplaying epidemics to bolster economies, and so forth. This paper will look at the use of a computer worm (the benevolent health worm) to disseminate vital information in␣situations where public health is threatened by government censorship and where there is great risk for those who ‹speak out’. The discussion of the benevolent health worm is focused on the Peoples’ Republic of China (China) drawing on three public health crises: HIV/AIDS, SARS and Avian Influenza. Ethical issues are examined first in a general fashion and then in a specific manner which uses the duty-based moral philosophy of Confucianism and a Western human rights-based analysis. Technical, political and legal issues will also be examined to the extent that they better inform the ethical debate. (shrink)

This article traces how embryo research has been theorized in Canada from the late 1980s to the current day. We find that research on human embryos has gradually come to be viewed in dichotomous terms, with scientific research pulled apart from experimentation to improve assisted reproduction procedures within fertility clinics. This distinction has been made manifest most clearly in the federal government’s 2007 consent regulations. The distinction between ‘improvement of assisted reproduction procedures’ and ‘research’ is problematic on two accounts. First, (...) interviews reveal that many Canadian IVF patients do not distinguish between the improvement of assisted reproduction and broader conceptions of ‘research’. This suggests that patients may be consenting to participate in embryo experimentation even where they do not understand its purposes. Second, the dichotomy may allow researchers and clinicians to evade research protocols that might otherwise apply in Canadian law. This could permit fertility clinics to conduct what might in other contexts fall under the category of ‘research’ without prescribed oversight, and may even enable clinicians and researchers to engage in practices that policymakers deliberately sought to proscribe. We call for a re-evaluation of the legal distinctions on embryo experimentation built into Canadian law, and indeed built into broader discussions of embryo research. (shrink)

One of the important lessons to take away from Rohit Parikh’s impressive body of work is that logicians and computer scientists have much to gain by focusing their attention on the intricacies of political campaigns. Drawing on recent work developing a theory of expressive voting, we study the dynamics of voters’ opinions during an election. In this paper, we develop a model in which the relative importance of the different issues that concern a voter may change either in response to (...) candidates’ statements during a campaign or due to unforeseen events. We study how changes in a voter?s attention to the issues influence voting behavior under voting systems such as plurality rule and approval voting. We argue that it can be worthwhile for candidates to reshape public focus, but that doing so can be a complex and risky activity. (shrink)

According to Duncan Pritchard, there are two kinds of radical sceptical problem; the closure-based problem, and the underdetermination-based problem. He argues that distinguishing these two problems leads to a set of desiderata for an anti-sceptical response, and that the way to meet all of these desiderata is by supplementing a form of Wittgensteinian contextualism with disjunctivist views about factivity. I agree that an adequate response should meet most of the initial desiderata Pritchard puts forward, and that some version of Wittgensteinian (...) contextualism shows the most promise as a starting point for this, but I argue, contra Pritchard, that the addition of disjunctivism is unnecessary and potentially counter-productive. If we draw on lessons from Michael Williams's inferential contextualism then it is both possible, and preferable, to meet the most important of Pritchard's desiderata, undercutting both closure-based and underdetermination-based sceptical problems in a unified way, without the need to resort to disjunctivism. (shrink)

On what basis do we attribute phenomenal states to others? One answer, defended by John Stuart Mill, appeals to an analogy between ourselves and the similar bodies and actions of others (1865, p. 208). Despite its intuitive plausibility, this position is often rejected (Arico et al., 2011; Buckwalter & Phelan, 2014; Knobe & Prinz, 2008). In line with Mill’s account, we propose that the primary factors used when making phenomenal state ascriptions are the appropriate display of functional and behavioral cues (...) and having bodies with the right kind of physical composition. To test this account, we gave five groups of participants a vignette followed by three to six questions. For four of the groups, the vignette described an alien-human encounter and the participants had to judge the likelihood (on a 7-point scale) that the alien had a non-phenomenal state (a belief) and the likelihood that it could have a phenomenal state (pain). The fifth group, as a control, read a vignette about a similar interaction between two humans. We found that, as appropriate functional and behavioral cues and then humanoid features are added to the alien, people are more willing to attribute a phenomenal state to it. Attributions of the non-phenomenal state are primarily dependent on the appropriate functional and behavioral cues, not on having humanoid features. (shrink)

In her book Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology (2015), Annalisa Coliva puts forward an anti-sceptical proposal based on the idea that the notion of rationality extends to the unwarrantable presuppositions “that make the acquisition of perceptual warrants possible” (2015: 150). These presuppositions are commonly the target of sceptical arguments, and by showing that they are on the one hand unwarrantable, but on the other are constitutive components of rationality itself, she reveals that they are beyond rational doubt and thus avoids (...) scepticism. Part of Coliva’s defence of using extended rationality in this way involves distancing it from relativist interpretations, which she describes as “devastating” (2015: 120). She proposes two ways that someone might attempt to formulate epistemic relativism from her extended rationality view, and argues that both would be unsuccessful because they require describing alternative conceptions of rationality which are “unintelligible” (in the first case), or “inconceivable” (in the second). The superficial claim of this chapter is that Coliva’s arguments, as they stand, are insufficient to dismiss relativism. She fails to show that the conception of rationality needed for the first formulation of relativism is unintelligible, and overestimates the significance of the second formulation’s conception turning out to be inconceivable. But I also highlight a deeper problem: neither formulation follows a realistic blueprint for relativism, and so these were the wrong possibilities to consider in the first place. To address this issue, I propose a third, more plausible, way in which someone might attempt to formulate relativism on the basis of Coliva’s account. I leave open whether this strategy is successful, or whether a version of Coliva’s criticisms apply to it too. (shrink)

The paper studies various functions of Berzelian formulas in European organic chemistry prior to the mid-nineteenth century from a semiotic, historical and epistemological perspective. I argue that chemists applied Berzelian formulas as productive ‘paper tools’ for creating a chemical order in the ‘jungle’ of organic chemistry. Beginning in the late 1820s, chemists applied chemical formulas to build models of the binary constitution of organic compounds in analogy to inorganic compounds. Based on these formula models, they constructed new classifications of organic (...) substances. They further applied Berzelian formulas in a twofold way to experimentally investigate organic chemical reactions: as tools which supplemented laboratory tools and as tools for constructing interpretive models of organic reactions. The scrutiny of chemists' performances with chemical formulas on paper also reveals a dialectic which contributed considerably to the formation of the new experimental culture of synthetic carbon chemistry that emerged between the late 1820s and the early 1840s. In an unintended and unforeseen way, the tools reacted back on the goals of their users and contributed to conceptual development and a shift of scientific objects and practices which transcended the originally intended chemical order. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:130 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Laura Bisaillon, Alana Cattapan, Annelieke Driessen, Esther van Duin, Shannon Spruit, Lorena Anton, and Nancy S. Jecker Doing Academia Differently: “I Needed Self-Help Less Than I Needed a Fair Society” A great deal of harm is being done by belief in the virtuousness of work. — Bertrand Russell, “In Praise of Idleness” We are committed to (...) doing academia in particular ways, and not in others. — Brocher Foundation Feminist Collective I had decided that becoming a university professor might be a good fit; friends and colleagues had suggested that I would be valuable to a university, so I prepared for a restructuring of my family life.1 I read Tokarczyk and Fay’s Working-Class Women in the Academy and Babcock and Laschever’s Women Don’t Ask to gather understandings of the milieu I was entering. I now see that my preparations had not shined sufficient light on the social and structural factors that organize the contemporary university.... As it turns out, the restructuring of our lives within the working conditions, priorities, and rationalities of this professional milieu triggered unanticipated and painful effects.... Had Mountz published her article “Women on the Edge” before I decided on a career migration into the university system and, had I been fortunate enough to discover it, I would have made other career choices.2 1. The authors, who describe themselves as the Brocher Foundation Feminist Collective, indicate their personal narratives in this text using italics. 2. Michelle M. Tokarczyk and Elizabeth A. Fay, eds., Working-Class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993); Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Bisaillon et al. 131 Introduction: Personal, Professional, and Political We are seven women who met at the Brocher Foundation in Hermance, Switzerland, in July 2017, where we had been selected to spend a few months as research fellows. This competitively awarded opportunity is open to persons fluent in English, from graduate students to senior scholars, with or without academic appointment, whose scholarship advances knowledge about the ethical, legal, and social implications of health and biotechnologies.3 When we found ourselves on the shores of Lake Leman with the gift of time, we began opening up to each other in unexpected, compelling ways. Whatever our vantage point in the hierarchy of the university system, we discovered that there was remarkable overlap in our experiences as women in academia. When we began writing, our authoring team was composed of two graduate students, four faculty members at the assistant professor rank, and one full professor, residing in Canada, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our plural subject position led us to underexplored and imaginative responses to broader social issues, which we share in this article as the “Brocher Foundation Feminist Collective.” We analyze our experiences from our standpoint as women health researchers laboring in the academy. Our similarities and differences were exciting entry points for discussion and analysis: we are all of eastern or western European descent. We have different countries of birth, mother tongues, ages, disciplinary training and career trajectories, relationships to chronic illness and disability, marital status, and experiences with parenthood. We bring the troubles and contradictions we experience as academics into conversation with each other. We seek to productively illustrate and emphasize that the tensions we see around us, and also feel within us, arise as a result of how the academic system is organized, produced, and sustained across time, place, and space. Press, 2003); Alison Mountz, “Women on the Edge: Workplace Stress at Universities in North America,” The Canadian Geographer 60, no. 2 (2016): 205–18. 3. We experienced this fellowship as a valuable opportunity. But we also recognized that our access to it was mediated by social, economic, or other obligations. As countries in the global north continue to tighten their national border regimes, marginalized academics, especially those from the global South, were less likely to succeed in getting a Swiss visa or securing relevant temporal and economic resources. 132 Bisaillon et al. The promise here, we posit... (shrink)