By the light or remains of five fires, this paper considers how the current extinction crisis might be thought in relation to the future and the past, to speed and acceleration, to ir/reversibility...

Pet-directed speech (PDS) is often produced by humans when addressing dogs. Similar to infant-directed speech, PDS is marked by a relatively higher and more modulated fundamental frequency (f 0) than is adult-directed speech. We tested the prediction that increasing eye size in dogs, one facial feature of neoteny (juvenilisation), would elicit exaggerated prosodic qualities or pet-directed speech. We experimentally manipulated eye size in photographs of twelve dog breeds by −15%, +15% and +30%. We first showed that dogs with larger eyes (...) were indeed perceived as younger. We then recorded men and women speaking towards these photographs, who also rated these images for cuteness. Linear mixed-effects models demonstrated that increasing eye size by 15% significantly increased pitch range (f 0 range) and variability (f 0CV) among women only. Cuteness ratings did not vary with eye size, due to a possible ceiling effect across eye sizes. Our results offer preliminary evidence that large eyes can elicit pet-directed speech and suggest that PDS may be modulated by perceived juvenility rather than cuteness. We discuss these findings in the context of inter-species vocal communication. (shrink)

In February 2020, the British Society for the History of Science hosted its first entirely digital conference via Twitter, with the dual goals of improving outreach and engagement with international historians of science, and exploring methods of reducing the carbon footprint of academic activities. In this article we discuss how we planned and organized this conference, and provide a summary of our experience of the conference itself. We also describe in greater detail the motivations behind its organization, and explore the (...) good and bad dimensions of this relatively new kind of conferencing. As the climate crisis becomes more acute and, in turn, the pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of academic activities increases, we argue that digital conferences of this style will necessarily become more central to how academia operates. By sharing our own experiences of running such a conference, we seek to contribute to a rapidly growing body of knowledge on the subject that might be drawn on to improve our practices going forward. We also share some of our own ideas about how best to approach digital conference organization which helped us to make the most of this particular event. (shrink)

ArgumentA plagiarism charge in 1827 sparked a public controversy centered between Jean-Victor Poncelet (1788–1867) and Joseph-Diez Gergonne (1771–1859) over the origin and applications of the principle of duality in geometry. Over the next three years and through the pages of various journals, monographs, letters, reviews, reports, and footnotes, vitriol between the antagonists increased as their potential publicity grew. While the historical literature offers valuable resources toward understanding the development, content, and applications of geometric duality, the hostile nature of the exchange (...) seems to have deterred an in-depth textual study of the explicitly polemical writings. We argue that the necessary collective endeavor of beginning and ending this controversy constitutes a case study in the circulation of geometry. In particular, we consider how the duality controversy functioned as a medium of communicating new fundamental principles to a wider audience of practitioners. (shrink)

In their publications during the 1820s, Jakob Steiner and Julius Plücker frequently derived the same results while claiming different methods. This paper focuses on two such results in order to compare their approaches to constructing figures, calculating with symbols, and representing geometric magnitudes. Underlying the repetitive display of similar problems and theorems, Steiner and Plücker redefined synthetic and analytic methods in distinctly personal practices.

As a philosophical position, pragmatism can be critiqued to distinguish truth only with methods that bring about desired results, predominantly with scientific enquiry. The article hopes to dismiss this oversimplification and propose that within mental health nursing, enquiry enlightened by pragmatism can be anchored to methods helping to tackle genuine human problems. Whilst pragmatists suggest one reality exists, fluctuating experiences and shifting beliefs about the world can inhabit within; hence, pragmatists propose reality has the potential to change. Moreover, pragmatism includes (...) being cognisant of what works to whom reality concerns, making reality context‐driven, with a view to understand how actions shape experiences so what is generated has usefulness. Hence, it somewhat follows pragmatism can inform mental health nursing, after all, nursing is a discipline of action, and awareness is needed in how actions produce experiences that patients find helpful. Given the principles of recovery are preferably adopted in mental health care, the paper will explore how pragmatism can help nurses move towards that goal; specifically, with patients voicing their experiences. This is because like pragmatism, recovery subscribes to hope that reality can progress, and through meaningful experiences and beliefs, patients have expertise about personal difficulties alongside how life may flourish, despite mental illness. (shrink)

A relational, feminist ethics of pregnancy sees the fetus as valuable both relationally and biologically, rather than minimized or ignored. Women are always at the center of ethical concern. To avoid gender-based discrimination, women’s bodily integrity, consent (to pregnancy), and physical “nestedness” (containment of the fetus within a person’s body) must be considered primary ethical concerns. This relational approach accounts for the significance of pregnancy and the grief of pregnancy loss while concurrently providing an ethical justification for abortion. This refined (...) framework has significant benefits because it can address a spectrum of ethical issues that arise around pregnancy. (shrink)

This volume deals with philosophically grounded theories of animal generation as found in two different traditions: one, deriving primarily from Aristotelian natural philosophy and specifically from his Generation of Animals; and another, deriving from two related medical traditions, the Hippocratic and the Galenic. The book contains a classification and critique of works that touch on the history of embryology and animal generation written before 1980. It also contains translations of key sections of the works on which it is focused. It (...) looks at two different scholarly communities: the physicians and philosophers, that share a set of textual resources and philosophical lineages, as well as a shared problem, but that nevertheless have different concerns and commitments. The book demonstrates how those working in these two traditions not only shared a common philosophical background in the arts curricula of the universities, but were in constant intercourse with each other. This book presents a test case of how scholarly communities differentiate themselves from each other through methods of argument, empirical investigation, and textual interpretations. It is all the more interesting because the two communities under investigation have so much in common and yet, in the end, are distinct in a number of important ways. (shrink)

This essay develops on the aesthetic dimensions of decolonial thought in the work of Rodolfo Kusch and Enrique Dussel, who both point us to non-objectifying modes of thinking and being. Beyond a strictly epistemological approach, decolonial critique ought to offer an account of bodies, spaces, and movements that are the very condition of thought—that is to say, the condition of a mode of thinking otherwise, beyond the dominant colonial paradigm. This account of aesthetics involves the spacing and temporalizing of bodies (...) as they live and move through the world, or what Alejandro Vallega calls living-thinking. The spacing-temporalizing of life points us also to the rhythm of life—life as movement, flow, and spacing. Turning to resistant epistemologies alongside the work of Omar Rivera, I consider how these epistemologies go beyond disembodied and abstracted ways of knowing as they sidestep the subject/object divide and engage sensuous and embodied dimensions of thinking, aesthetic experiences, diverse geographies, and histories. In closing, I argue that decolonial aesthetics also points us to a critique of the coloniality of space. Moving beyond a cartographic grid that attempts to capture subjects and spaces in advance on its coordinate plane, decolonial aesthetics opens onto the richness of embodied and cosmic spaces. (shrink)

As mathematics departments in the United States began to shift toward standards of original research at the end of the nineteenth century, many adopted journal clubs as forums to engage with new periodical literature. The Bryn Mawr Mathematics Journal Club, maintained episodically between 1896 and 1924, began as a supplement to the graduate course offerings. Each semester student and professor participants focused on a single disciplinary area or surveyed what had been published lately. The Notebooks containing these reports were stored (...) on the open shelves of the college library. These collectively composed documents record ways in which graduate students transcribed and interpreted contemporary literature from the front to the back of mathematics. This article will consider the entries of a single student in which published mathematics was rewritten for a local audience and how the process of relocation animated research at Bryn Mawr. (shrink)

Open Court began publishingThe Monistin 1890 as a journal“devotedto the philosophy of science”that regularly included mathematics. The audiencewas understood to be“cultured people who have not a technical mathematicaltraining”but nevertheless“have a mathematical penchant.”With these constraints,the mathematical content varied from recreations to logical foundations, but every-one had something to say about non-Euclidean geometry, in debates that rangedfrom psychology to semantics. The focus in this essay is on the contested value ofmathematical expertise in legitimating what should be considered as mathematics.While some mathematicians urgedThe (...) Monistto uphold disciplinary standards ofgeometrical reasoning, authors opposed tonon-Euclidean geometry aligned theirreasoning with practical applications, universal know-how, and nonhierarchicaldemocracy. As one contributorinquired,“How isthe professional expert betterfit-ted to see more lucidly in dealing with the elements of geometry than any otherperson of good geometric faculty?”. (shrink)

The work of Charles Scott bears a lightness that enlivens his thinking and writing. In the spirit of such lightness, I argue for gappiness and dimensionality as ways of thinking indifference and liveliness in Scott’s accounts of things. Through a close reading of Starlight in the Face of the Other, I show that gappiness happens with indifference in senses of galactic space and exceeds the philosophical and historical lineages of alterity. Through the functions of recoil and the subjunctive mood in (...) Scott’s work, I show that dimensionality characterizes the liveliness of thinking in attunement to indifference. I conclude with an indifferent and dimensional account of the space of disclosure in thinking. (shrink)

Charlotte Angas Scott (1858–1932) was an internationally renowned geometer, the first British woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics, and the chair of the Bryn Mawr mathematics department for forty years. There she helped shape the burgeoning mathematics community in the United States. Scott often motivated her research as providing a “geometric treatment” of results that had previously been derived algebraically. The adjective “geometric” likely entailed many things for Scott, from her careful illustration of diagrams to her choice of references (...) and citations. This article will focus on Scott’s striking and consistent use of geometric to describe a reality of dynamic points, lines, planes, and spaces that could be manipulated analogously to physical objects. By providing geometric interpretations of algebraic derivations, Scott committed to an early-nineteenth-century aesthetic vision of a “whole” analytical geometry that she adapted to modern research areas. (shrink)

Cuba's National Food Program aims to assure its population a minimum degree of food security during the current period of transition from dependency upon the ex-Socialist trading bloc. A number of important elements of the Food Program, however, were conceived before the demise of COMECON in an effort to deepen food import substitution. This paper reviews the degree of Cuba's food import dependence before the breakup of the Socialist bloc, the initial targets of the National Food Program, and how these (...) have been modified due to the severe reduction in Cuba's normal level of imports of petroleum and other agricultural inputs. It is argued that Cuba's reliance upon scientific advances combined with a return to traditional, ecologically-benign agricultural practices and large-scale labor mobilizations have allowed it to overcome a drastic shortfall in production as a result of the reduced level of imports of modern agricultural inputs. At the same time, it has been exceedingly difficult for the country to maintain production levels at the trend of the late 1980s or to continue to aspire to meet the ambitious targets of the initial Food Program plan. (shrink)

Measured inequality has increased tremendously between the 1960s and 1990s, not only in the United States but throughout the majority of industrial nations. Wages among people of the same race and gender have become less equal. The hours worked by men have fallen, and the drop has been more pronounced among those who earn lower wages—as a result, inequality in labor income, which is the product of the wage rate and hours worked, has increased relative to inequality in wage rates. (...) Moreover, among married couples, employment of the wives of high-income men has increased until these wives are approximately as likely to be employed outside the home as are the wives of low-income men, who have always worked for wages. In addition, due to assortative mating, wage rates of husbands and wives are positively correlated, and it is clear that the growth in inequality of labor incomes among families has outstripped the growth in inequality in individual labor income. Finally, only the highest-income families have savings in excess of home equity and company-sponsored pensions, which implies that inequality in wealth among families has been exacerbated by the growth in stock prices. (shrink)

In this article I consider the role of passing and performance in the everyday lives of alkaptonuria and vitiligo patients. Race, LGBTQ, gender and disability scholars have long used the term passing to describe sub-groups of people within marginal populations who intentionally manipulate their bodies or alter their behaviour in order to claim identities that are not socially assigned to them at birth. In this paper I demonstrate the effectiveness of the passing strategies that patients use in order to mitigate (...) their disease symptoms and render them invisible, thus enabling them to pass as “healthy” or unaffected by their condition. I further consider how patients who choose not to pass utilise resistance strategies in order to generate awareness of their disease and encourage funding for it. I conclude by assessing the effectiveness of these strategies in determining whether or not patients can pass, and the ways in which this is aided or hindered by their social and economic status. (shrink)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or queer (LGBTQ) people experience profound health and social care inequalities. Research suggests that staff with negative attitudes towards LGBTQ people, are more likely to hold strong, traditional, religious beliefs. This article reports on a single case study with a newly qualified UK nurse who has since left the National Health Service. This is based on a single interview taken from a larger dataset derived from a funded scoping research study exploring religious freedoms, sexual orientation and (...) gender identity rights in older age care spaces. The interviewee described a toxic nursing culture on a hospital ward for older people. She recounted various incidents involving homophobic and transphobic practice and LGBTQ microaggressions which reportedly impacted the quality of nursing care. The findings are considered in relation to standards for anti-oppressive practice in nursing care, and how nursing students and staff can be supported in addressing practice relating to equality and diversity issues, specifically LGBTQ issues. They confirm the direct significance of addressing the needs and circumstances of LGBTQ people in nursing curricula and ongoing professional practice, and the need to further research, evaluate and progress translation of learning into improved quality care for diverse populations. (shrink)

This article explores how ‘fat shaming’ as a practice that encourages open disdain for those living in larger bodies operates as a moralising tool to regulate and manage those who are viewed as ‘bad citizens’. It begins by outlining the problematic use of fat shaming language that is often used as a tool to promote ‘healthy’ lifestyle choices by those who view it as not only an acceptable way of communicating the health risks associated with obesity, but also a productive (...) way of motivating people with overweight and obesity to lose weight. I then go on to discuss how shame as it relates to body image and excess weight is culturally produced through both objective conceptualisations of deviance and subjective judgements about the moral character of those who are living with excess weight. Adopting a feminist theoretical perspective, this article further considers the reciprocal nature of fat shaming by calling attention to how shame as a felt emotion is dependent on understandings of oneself in relation to others, as well as the relationships that one forms with others. In this way, I argue that shame in general, and fat shaming in particular, is performative to the extent that it exists as a relational construct that is iteratively produced through the language and actions that give it meaning. (shrink)

Rural women did not fare very well inthe land reforms carried out during the Latin American“reformist period” of the 1960s and 1970s, with womenbeing under-represented among the beneficiaries. It isargued that women have been excluded from access toand control over water for similar reasons that theywere excluded from access to land during thesereforms. The paper also investigates the extent towhich women have gained or lost access to land duringthe “counter-reforms” of the 1980s and 1990s. Underthe neo-liberal agenda, production cooperatives aswell (...) as communal access to land have largely beenundermined in favor of privatization and theindividual parcelization of collectives. Significantland titling efforts are also being carried outthroughout the region to promote the development of avigorous land market. This latter period has also beencharacterized by the growth of the feminist movementthroughout Latin America and a growing commitment bystates to gender equity. The paper reviews the extentto which rural women‘s access to land and, thus, waterhas potentially been enhanced by recent changes inagrarian and legal codes. (shrink)

We reflect on our experience co-teaching a medical humanities elective, “Pandemics and Plagues,” which was offered to undergraduates during the Spring 2021 semester, and discuss student reactions to studying epidemic disease from multidisciplinary medical humanities perspectives while living through the world Covid-19 pandemic. The course incorporated basic microbiology and epidemiology into discussions of how epidemics from the Black Death to HIV/AIDS have been portrayed in history, literature, art, music, and journalism. Students self-assessed their learning gains and offered their insights using (...) the SALG, describing how the course enhanced their understanding of the current pandemic. In class discussions and written assignments, students paid particular attention to issues of social justice, political context, and connections between past pandemics and Covid-19. Student responses indicate enhanced understanding of the scientific and medical aspects of epidemics and also increased appreciation of the insights to be gained from the medical humanities. We discuss co-teaching the class during a real-time, twenty-four-hour-news-cycle pandemic, and the ways in which that experience underlines the value of a “critical medical humanities” approach for undergraduates. (shrink)

It is a cliché of self-help advice that there are no problems, only opportunities. The rationale and actions of the BSHS in creating its Global Digital History of Science Festival may be a rare genuine confirmation of this mantra. The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 meant that the society's usual annual conference – like everyone else's – had to be cancelled. Once the society decided to go digital, we had a hundred days to organize and deliver our first online festival. (...) In the hope that this will help, inspire and warn colleagues around the world who are also trying to move online, we here detail the considerations, conversations and thinking behind the organizing team's decisions. (shrink)

In Australia, young adults are more likely to experience psychological distress than other age-groups. Accordingly, volunteer work engagement may act as an important tool for supporting psychological wellbeing. The present study relies on the job demands–resources model and self-determination theory to help understand the negative consequences of high work demands and the importance of effective organizational support to enhance positive mental health outcomes. To address research gaps, the current study explores these concepts for the young adulthood cohort in not-for-profit organizations. (...) The study aims to explore the relationship between psychological wellbeing, volunteer work engagement, and perceived organizational support. The study used a quantitative, cross-lagged, longitudinal method for collecting data from two online surveys completed 4 weeks apart. The inclusion criteria of participants were volunteers who worked a minimum of 4 h a month, resided in Australia, and were between 19 and 40 years old. The main study findings were that perceived organizational support mediated the relationship between psychological wellbeing at time point 1 and volunteer engagement at time point 2. However, perceived organizational support did not mediate volunteer engagement at time point 1 and psychological wellbeing at time point 2. There were no bidirectional effects between volunteer engagement and psychological wellbeing. The findings contributed to the existing literature, suggesting there are overlaps between support mechanisms and motivation between paid and unpaid work. The practical implications for not-for-profit organizations are the importance of providing organizational support for young adult volunteers to improve wellbeing outcomes. Limitations and future study recommendations are presented. (shrink)

Most countries compile evidence from witnesses and victims manually, whereby the interviewer assimilates what the interviewee says during the course of an interview to produce an evidential statement. This exploratory research examined the quality of evidential statements generated in real world investigations. Transcribed witness/victim interviews were compared to the resultant written statements produced by the interviewing officer and signed as an accurate record by the interviewee. A coding protocol was devised to assess the consistency of information between what was said (...) by the interviewee in the verbal interview and what was reported in the written statement. Statements contained numerous errors including omissions, distortions, and the inclusion of information not mentioned in the verbal interview. This exploratory work highlights an important area for future research focus. (shrink)

The rediscovery of the silver-backed chevrotain, an endemic species to Vietnam, in 2019, after almost 30 years of being lost to science, is a remarkable outcome for the global conservation agenda. However, along with the happiness, there is a tremendous concern for the conservation of the species as eating wildmeat, including chevrotain, is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural values of Vietnamese. Meanwhile, conservation plans face multiple obstacles since the species has not been listed in the list of endangered, precious, and (...) rare wildlife prioritized for protection and is still classified by the IUCN as lacking data. Given the limited effectiveness of conservation measures, this essay discusses the determining roles of local actions, community cooperation, and humanistic values oriented toward eco-surplus culture in addressing the global biodiversity conservation agenda, specifically the conservation of the silver-backed chevrotain. Local actions and community cooperation for conservation can be actualized to achieve conservation goals through citizen and community sciences, integration of modern technologies (e.g., Internet, crowdfunding platforms, social media, AI, etc.), and the bonding capability of humanistic values that prioritize environmental healing. Communicating conservation information to the community, especially the children, has to stimulate their thinking and imagination about nature, develop their curiosity and desire to protect wildlife, and eventually build eco-surplus core values in their mindsets. To successfully awaken the humanistic values within the community and incorporate them into conservation endeavors, the conservation message with the name “mouse-deer”, “chevrotain”, or scientific name (Tragulus versicolor) is largely insufficient as they show an unfamiliar feeling. Therefore, we suggest calling the mouse-deer “cheo cheo”, a local name that can create familiarity and closeness, awaken the environmental conscience and humanistic values, and stimulate thinking and imagination. All these factors are essential for conservationists, scientists, and the government to support the community in building the eco-surplus culture. (shrink)

Alors que l’on trouvait dix biches dans le texte hébreu, la traduction de l’Ancien Testament en latin par saint Jérôme n’en conserve que trois : celles qui étaient associées à un faon (Jb. 39, 1 ; Pr. 5, 19 et Jr. 14, 5). Les théologiens, suivant le commentaire de Bède, trouvent dans le verset des Proverbes un support fécond pour des analogies mariales, ecclésiales et conjugales, faisant de la biche un modèle de maternité. Celui-ci culmine au xiie siècle sous l’influence (...) du culte de la Vierge. Parallèlement, une autre tradition exégétique inspirée de Grégoire le Grand voit dans la douleur des biches parturientes de Job et Jérémie un parallèle avec celle des prédicateurs et apôtres. Cette association a priori surprenante avec des personnages masculins éclaire en fait la construction fluide du genre au Moyen Âge. Enfin, l’évolution du motif de l’analogie biche-Christ, dans les textes comme dans les images, permet d’appréhender la façon dont les biches perdent progressivement leur ambivalence et se féminisent à la fin de la période. (shrink)

In the first Russian Roulette scene in the Deer Hunter, do the circumstances giving rise to Mike's and Nick's "rebellion" merely document Kahneman-Tversky-type glitches in the reasoning of their Vietcong captors, or does the scene also reveal a genuine inadequacy in our current understanding of interactive rationality--the resolution of which would have profound implications for rational choice theory and its myriad applications? I argue the latter.

A photographic journey alongside hunters in Wisconsin, Blaze Orange captures the joy, excitement, and camaraderie of deer hunting in the state.