In response to recent controversies about racial transitioning, I provide an argument that deceptions about ancestry may sometimes constitute fraud. In order to arrive at this conclusion, I criticize the arguments from analogy made famous by Rebecca Tuvel and Christine Overall. My claim is that we should not think of racial transitioning as similar to gender transitioning, because different identity groups possess different kinds of obstacles to entry. I then provide historical surveys of American racial categories and (...) the various types of passing common in American history, in order to distinguish the potentially fraudulent from the relatively innocent styles of passing. (shrink)

In this essay, I reply to critiques of my article “In Defense of Transracialism.” Echoing Chloë Taylor and Lewis Gordon’s remarks on the controversy over my article, I first reflect on the lack of intellectual generosity displayed in response to my paper. In reply to Kris Sealey, I next argue that it is dangerous to hinge the moral acceptability of a particular identity or practice on what she calls a collective co-signing. In reply to Sabrina Hom, I suggest that relying (...) on the language of passing to describe transracialism is potentially misleading. In reply to Tina Botts, I both defend analytic philosophy of race against her multiple criticisms and suggest that Botts’s remarks risk complicity with a form of transphobia that Talia Mae Bettcher calls the Basic Denial of Authenticity. I end by gesturing toward a more inclusive understanding of racial identity. (shrink)

Among race theorists, the view that race is a social construction is widespread. While the term ‘ social construction’ is sometimes intended to mean merely that race does not constitute a robust, biological natural kind, it often labels the stronger position that race is real, but not a biological kind. For example, Charles Mills writes that, ‘‘the task of those working on race is to put race in quotes, ‘race’, while still insisting that nevertheless, it exists ’’. It is to (...) ‘‘make a plausible social ontology neither essentialist, innate, nor transhistorical, but real enough for all that’’. Racial constructionism, thus conceived, is a metaphysical position that contrasts both with the view that race is an important biological kind and with the more recent claim that race does not exist. The desire for a constructionist metaphysics of race emerges against the background of a cluster of normative disputes, including. (shrink)

Racial preferences are among the most contentious issues in our society, touching on fundamental questions of fairness and the proper role of racial categories in government action. Now two contemporary philosophers, in a lively debate, lay out the arguments on each side. Carl Cohen, a key figure in the University of Michigan Supreme Court cases, argues that racial preferences are morally wrong--forbidden by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and explicitly banned by the Civil Rights Act of (...) 1964. He also contends that such preferences harm society in general, damage the universities that use them, and undermine the minorities they were intended to serve. James P. Sterba counters that, far from being banned by the Constitution and the civil rights acts, affirmative action is actually mandated by law in the pursuit of a society that is racially and sexually just. The same Congress that adopted the 14th Amendment, he notes, passed race-specific laws that extended aid to blacks. Indeed, there are various kinds of affirmative action--compensation for past discrimination, remedial measures aimed at current discrimination, the guarantee of diversity--and Sterba reviews the Supreme Court cases that build a constitutional foundation for each. Affirmative action, he argues, favors qualified minority candidates, not unqualified ones. Both authors offer concluding comment on the University of Michigan cases decided in 2003. Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, issues pertaining to racial discrimination continue to grip American society. Ideal for courses in political, social, ethical, and legal philosophy, this penetrating debate explores the philosophical and legal arguments on all sides of affirmative action, but also reveals the passions that drive the issue to the forefront of public life. (shrink)

Since the emergence of cosmetic surgery at the turn of the 20th century, individuals in the US and Europe have looked to cosmetic surgery not only as a way to enhance their appearance, but also as a way to minimize or eradicate physical signs that - they believe - mark them as `different', that is, other than the dominant, or another, more desirable, `racial' or `ethnic' group. In my article, I raise the question of how such ethnic cosmetic surgery (...) might differ from other types of cosmetic surgery (such as breast augmentations for `enhancing' femininity or face-lifts to eliminate signs of aging) and, more generally, whether ethnic cosmetic surgery raises different normative or ethical issues. After a brief foray into the history of cosmetic surgery and its connections with racial science, I turn to the current practice of ethnic cosmetic surgery, situating it in contemporary political controversies about race and beauty. I draw upon the case of Michael Jackson - arguably the best known recipient of this kind of cosmetic surgery - in order to analyze how cosmetic surgery for people of color or for the `ethnically marginalized' is framed in a discourse of `race' and the consequences this framing has for feminist thinking about embodiment and embodied identity. Finally, I return to the relative ease or unease that cosmetic surgery evokes among its critics. (shrink)

As this nation embarks on new efforts to reform the U.S. health system, we face a critical unfinished agenda from the mid- 1960s: persistent racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health and health care. Medicaid, Medicare, and Community Health Centers — public programs with very different legislative histories and financing mechanisms — were the first federally funded, nationwide efforts to improve health care access for low-income and elderly Americans. Members of racial and ethnic minority groups also greatly benefited (...) from these efforts because recipients of federal funds, such as Medicare, were required to comply with the newly passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, which barred racial discrimination. Unquestionably, government played a major role in the gains in health care access that have occurred in the last half century. Yet today all Americans do not have the same opportunities for health, access to care, or quality of care when they receive it. (shrink)

Abstract The phenomenological approach to racialization needs to be supplemented by a hermeneutics that examines the history of the various categories in terms of which people see and have seen race. An investigation of this kind suggests that instead of the rigid essentialism that is normally associated with the history of racism, race predominantly operates as a border concept, that is to say, a dynamic fluid concept whose core lies not at the center but at its edges. I illustrate this (...) by an examination of the history of the distinctions between the races as it is revealed in legal, scientific, and philosophical sources. I focus especially on racial distinctions in the United States and on the way that the impact of miscegenation was negotiated leading to the so-called one-drop rule. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta um relato de experiência das ações extensionistas promovidas no ano de 2021 pelo Núcleo de Estudos Afro-brasileiros e Indígenas (NEABI) do Campus Ibirama da Instituto Federal Catarinense. Devido ao contexto de pandemia de COVID-19, que perdurou durante quase todo o ano letivo de 2021, as atividades do Núcleo precisaram ser adaptadas para que ocorressem em ambientes virtuais. Apesar desta adequação forçada, que limitou em grande medida a diversidade das ações, foi possível identificar tanto o promissor potencial (...) do NEABI quanto os desafios a serem superados para que a temática étnico-racial seja definitivamente incluída nos espaços institucionais e passe a fazer parte do cotidiano da comunidade escolar. (shrink)

In this article, I examine racial narratives of passing and their relationship to discourses of hybridity. Rather than defining passing as inherently transgressive, or as one side of identity politics or the other, I suggest that passing must be understood in relationship to forms of social antagonism. I ask the following questions: how are differences that threaten the system recuperated? How do ambiguous or hybrid bodies get read in a way which further supports the enunciative power (...) of those who are telling the difference? In what ways is `passing' implicated in the very discourse around tellable differences? Although to some extent all identities involve passing - insofar as the subject never `is' what it `images' itself to be - we still need to theorize the differences between passing as white and passing as black. I argue that passing as black as a white subject can function as a technique of knowledge which assumes `blackness' to be imageable and hence beable. However, for black subjects to refuse to pass as white - that is, for black subjects to pass as black - can make visible the violent histories concealed by the invisibility of the mark of passing. Such a process of passing as black subjects is tied to a politics of the collective - a coming together through the recognition of the lack that engenders passing in the first place. (shrink)

The mind-body problem in philosophy is typically understood as a discourse concerning the relation of mental states to physical states, and the experience of sensation. On this level it seems to transcend issues of race and racism, but Another Mind-Body Problem demonstrates that racial distinctions have been an integral part of the discourse since the Modern period in philosophy. Reading figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant in their historical contexts, John Harfouch uncovers discussions of mind and body that (...) engaged closely with philosophical and scientific notions of race in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, in particular in understanding how the mind unites with the body at birth and is then passed on through sexual reproduction. Kant argued that a person’s exterior body and interior psyche are bound together, that non-White people lacked reason, and that this lack of reason was carried on through reproduction such that non-Whites were an example of a union of mind and body without full being. Charting the development of this phenomenon from sixteenth-century medical literature to modern-day race discourse, Harfouch argues for new understandings of Descartes’s mind-body problem, Fanon’s experience of being ‘not-yet human,’ and the place of racism in relation to one of philosophy’s most enduring and canonical problems. -/- “Harfouch has written an important book on the intersection of race and the Western construction of the mind-body problem … This book is a significant resource for theorists dealing with race and decolonization issues, but it is more significant for the critique of philosophy itself and the continued teaching of mind-body issues. Readers will need some knowledge of philosophy, but the volume is in general accessible. It should be required reading for scholars of philosophy. Harfouch establishes a logically strong argument and makes a unique contribution to the field.” — CHOICE. (shrink)

In an examination of the psychological aspect of passing, this essay challenges Sandy Stone's conceptualization and subsequent request for transsexuals to forego the act. Employing an auto-ethnographical approach, this essay contends that considering the “psychic” dimensions of passing requires different, and more hopeful, articulations about transsexual bodies, such that gendered and racialized transsexual bodies are produced not simply in terms of social reading and physical embodiment, but also through psychic affirmation and disavowal.

W.E.B. Du Bois’s elegy for his infant son, “Of the Passing of the First-Born,” in The Souls of Black Folk, has received relatively scant attention from political theorists. Yet it illuminates crucial developments in Du Bois’s political thought. It memorializes a tragedy central to his turn from scientific facts to rhetorical appeals to emotion. Its rhetoric also exemplifies a broader tension in his writings, between masculinist and elitist commitments and more insurrectionary impulses. In its normalizing rhetorical mode, which dominates, (...) the elegy depicts an idealized patriarchal bourgeois household—potentially eliciting white readers’ sympathetic identification, but failing to displace the gendered and classed logic of racial exclusion. Its moments of transgressive rhetoric complicate or refuse such identification, celebrating Burghardt’s racial impurity and invoking a lineage of black maternal ambivalence. Though each is vexed and ephemeral, these moments of transgressive rhetoric reveal countervailing impulses that Du Bois would articulate in later writings. (shrink)

Reflecting on the tension of which he was aware between the imperial West and the still-mysterious East, Victorian writer Rudyard Kipling penned the above phrase to express the incommensurable situation wherein the Westerner never understands the Asian, as the latter’s culture differs too greatly from his own. However, aware that East and West nevertheless cannot remain separated forever, the author ends the poem with an eventual encounter between the two.Over 100 years have passed since this poem was written, yet the (...) ambivalent encounter between East and West that it depicts still exists and is currently playing out within the field of pharmaceuticals. On one side of the divide are the many people in the industry who want to standardize global acceptance of drugs; on the other are the local authorities who want to maintain the overruling legal need not to compromise on health care at a national level. In this sense, the divergence and unity that Kipling captures is what this paper aims to discuss as it addresses how race is debated at the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

This article explores the complex position of British women missionaries under the Raj at a time of rising Indian nationalism in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. By 1920, 311 unmarried female recruits were serving the two leading Anglican societies in India – the high-Church Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the evangelical Church Missionary Society – as opposed to 270 men. Although they transgressed imperial norms of ‘pukka’ female behaviour, these single women had numerous ties to the British (...) regime. Missionary and imperial ideals of service intertwined, and mission institutions frequently enjoyed imperial patronage. Sometimes, as at the Criminal Tribes Settlement in Hubli, women missionaries were even employed in direct government service. Using letters and reports, this article examines women missionaries’ negotiation of their complicated status, traversing the gap between the ruling race and its awakening subjects. It highlights their reticence with regards to all-India nationalist politics and their concentration on immediate, local affairs, arguing that such apoliticism and parochialism were consequences of their distinctive, gendered position within mission and imperial hierarchies. Their responses to nationalism and Independence were also conditioned by their Christianity, in particular their ultimate aim to ‘Indianize’ the Mission, promoting swaraj – not necessarily for India as a nation – but for the indigenous Indian Church. After Independence, this ongoing work, and the ambiguities of women missionaries’ connections to Empire, legitimated their continued presence in the subcontinent. (shrink)

This paper argues for analyzing the systematic invisibility of persons living with disabilities by temporalizing their oppression within a framework of “productive time,” which I posit as a normative sense of time by which cultural products and practices appear within capitalist economies. I argue that productive time is employed in cultural evaluations of actions that render persons with disabilities as “non-productive agents” who cannot partake in historical processes. My hope is that a theory of productive time will assist social justice (...) efforts in analyzing the oppression of particular minority groups by identifying and combating harmful social values. (shrink)

There have been two major lines of research aimed at capturing resource-bounded players in game theory. The first, initiated by Rubinstein (), charges an agent for doing costly computation; the second, initiated by Neyman (), does not charge for computation, but limits the computation that agents can do, typically by modeling agents as finite automata. We review recent work on applying both approaches in the context of decision theory. For the first approach, we take the objects of choice in a (...) decision problem to be Turing machines, and charge players for the “complexity” of the Turing machine chosen (e.g., its running time). This approach can be used to explain well-known phenomena like first-impression-matters biases (i.e., people tend to put more weight on evidence they hear early on) and belief polarization (two people with different prior beliefs, hearing the same evidence, can end up with diametrically opposed conclusions) as the outcomes of quite rational decisions. For the second approach, we model people as finite automata, and provide a simple algorithm that, on a problem that captures a number of settings of interest, provably performs optimally as the number of states in the automaton increases. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the structure of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, using the framework of human emotions in response to grieving and death as developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Through her studies of terminally ill patients, Kubler-Ross identified five stages when approaching death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages accurately fill the process that the character Sethe experiences in the novel as she learns to accept her daughter’s death.

While cochlear implantation is now considered routine in many parts of the world, the debate over how to ethically implement this technology continues. One’s stance on implantation often hinges on one’s understanding of deafness. On one end of the spectrum are those who see cochlear implants as a much needed cure for an otherwise intractable disability. On the other end of the spectrum are those who view the Deaf as members of a thriving culture and see the cochlear implant as (...) an attempt to eliminate this culture. Rather than take a stance in this debate, we will argue that the informed consent process for cochlear implantation must include access to Deaf perspectives. Deaf individuals know best what it is like to be a member of the Deaf community; the reasonable person would put significant weight on the testimony of Deaf individuals when considering whether to undergo cochlear implantation. The reasonable person standard determines what information careproviders must present as part of the informed consent process; thus, informed consent for cochlear implantation requires access to the testimony of Deaf individuals. (shrink)

This book approaches the problems and circumstances confronting blacks in the context of black values, the black community, and the role of government. ^BContents:: The Black Community's Values as a Basis for Action; The Community as Agent of Change; and The Government's Role in Meeting New Challenges.

The majority of food in the US is distributed through global/national supply chains that exclude locally-produced goods. This situation offers opportunities to increase local food production and consumption and is influenced by constraints that limit the scale of these activities. We conducted a study to assess perspectives of producers and consumers engaged in food systems of a major Midwestern city. We examined producers’ willingness to include/increase cultivation of local foods and consumers’ interest in purchasing/increasing local foods. We used focus groups (...) of producers (two groups of conventional farmers, four local food producers) and consumers (three conventional market participants, two locavores) to pose questions about production/consumption of local foods. We transcribed discussions verbatim and examined text to identify themes, using separate affinity diagrams for producers and consumers. We found producers and consumers are influenced by the _status quo_ and real and perceived barriers to local foods. We also learned participants believed increasing production and consumption of local foods would benefit their community and creating better infrastructure could enhance efforts to scale up local food systems. Focus group participants also indicated support from external champions/programs could support expansion of local foods. We learned that diversifying local food production was viewed as a way to support local community, increase access to healthy foods and reduce environmental impacts of conventional production. Our research indicates that encouraging producers and consumers in local food systems will be more successful when support for the local community is emphasized. (shrink)

Social constructionists about race frequently hold that race does not travel, that race is socially constructed, and that racial passing is possible. Ron Mallon has argued that these three principles cannot be consistently held at once. This article argues otherwise.

Cyborg and prosthetic technologies frame prominent posthumanist approaches to understanding the nature of race. But these frameworks struggle to accommodate the phenomena of racial passing and racial travel, and their posthumanist orientation blurs useful distinctions between racialized humans and their social contexts. We advocate, instead, a humanist approach to race, understanding racial hierarchy as an industrial technology. Our approach accommodates racial passing and travel. It integrates a wide array of research across disciplines. It also (...) helpfully distinguishes among grounds of racialization and conditions facilitating impacts of such racialization. (shrink)

Transracialism, defined as both experiencing oneself as, and being, a race other than the race assigned to one by society, does not exist. Translated into hermeneutics, transracialism is an unintelligible phenomenon in the specific sociocultural context of the United States in the early twenty-first century. Within this context, race is a function of ancestry, and is therefore defined in terms of something that is external to the self and unchangeable. Since transracialism does not exist, the question of whether transracialism would (...) be ethically advisable if it did exist is inapposite. Nonetheless, at a minimum we can say that racial transition (defined as attempting to change one’s race through artificial and/or associative changes, and living life as a race other than the race assigned to one by society, etc.) is possible, but is very likely unethical, since it is the same as racial passing. (shrink)

Transracialism, defined as both experiencing oneself as, and being, a race other than the race assigned to one by society, does not exist. Translated into hermeneutics, transracialism is an unintelligible phenomenon in the specific sociocultural context of the United States in the early twenty-first century. Within this context, race is a function of ancestry, and is therefore defined in terms of something that is external to the self and unchangeable. Since transracialism does not exist, the question of whether transracialism would (...) be ethically advisable if it did exist is inapposite. Nonetheless, at a minimum we can say that racial transition (defined as attempting to change one’s race through artificial and/or associative changes, and living life as a race other than the race assigned to one by society, etc.) is possible, but is very likely unethical, since it is the same as racial passing. (shrink)

Rebecca Tuvel’s controversial “In Defense of Transracialism” has been criticized for a lack of engagement with critical race theory. Disengagement with salient material on race is a consistent feature of the philosophical conversation out of which it arises. In this article, I trace the origins of feminist philosophy’s disengaged and distorted view of “transracialism” and racial passing through the work of Janice Raymond, Christine Overall, and Cressida Heyes, and consider some of the relevant work on passing that (...) is omitted in the philosophy of “transracialism.” Finally, I offer methodological suggestions to avoid such distortions and omissions in feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Philip Roth’s novel 'The Human Stain' recounts an instance of racial passing: its protagonist, Coleman Silk, is African-American but light-skinned enough to pass as white. Coleman’s decision to pass and his subsequent violent death, I argue, confront us with complex ethical questions regarding unjust social roles, loyalty, and moral luck. I also argue, building on Hegel’s definition of tragedy, that 'The Human Stain' is a particularly modern tragedy. The novel highlights conflicting role obligations, inadequate conceptions of freedom, and (...) the tensions of cultural paradigm shifts—all characteristics typical of modern tragedy. I claim that parsing 'The Human Stain' as a tragedy deepens our understanding of the novel as well as drawing our attention to its philosophical significance. (shrink)

This paper further elucidates our understanding of social identities. Some theorists have argued that we identify with our social statuses when we self-consciously adopt them as our own. This paper argues against this view and instead suggests that we identify with our social statuses when we care about them. Moreover, it theorizes care as a kind of emotional attunement to our social statuses that sometimes operates below the surface of self-reflective awareness.

Charles Mills adhered to the highest standards of philosophical scholarship, while seeing his work firmly as a contribution to the cause of social justice. He had a deep appreciation for historical context and a history of ideas approach to racial/philosophical questions. He was one of the foremost Rawls interpreters or our time, though only a few years before his passing was he so recognized. He channeled his analytic training in his habit of demonstrating how a view is strengthened (...) when an author shows how objections can be systematically replied to. I wish he had tried to integrate class and race into a larger theoretical system, of both an explanatory and normative character. Class is sometimes an unnoted presence in his explanation of white supremacy. Charles saw himself contributing to a collective scholarly social justice project and was happy to acknowledge the greater expertise of others in allied areas to his. (shrink)

More than forty years have passed since Congress, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, enacted sweeping antidiscrimination laws in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. As a signal achievement of that legacy, in 2008, Americans elected their first African American president. Some would argue that we have finally arrived at a postracial America, butThe Imperative of Integration indicates otherwise. Elizabeth Anderson demonstrates that, despite progress toward (...) class='Hi'>racial equality, African Americans remain disadvantaged on virtually all measures of well-being. Segregation remains a key cause of these problems, and Anderson skillfully shows why racial integration is needed to address these issues. Weaving together extensive social science findings--in economics, sociology, and psychology--with political theory, this book provides a compelling argument for reviving the ideal of racial integration to overcome injustice and inequality, and to build a better democracy. -/- Considering the effects of segregation and integration across multiple social arenas, Anderson exposes the deficiencies of racial views on both the right and the left. She reveals the limitations of conservative explanations for black disadvantage in terms of cultural pathology within the black community and explains why color blindness is morally misguided. Multicultural celebrations of group differences are also not enough to solve our racial problems. Anderson provides a distinctive rationale for affirmative action as a tool for promoting integration, and explores how integration can be practiced beyond affirmative action. -/- Offering an expansive model for practicing political philosophy in close collaboration with the social sciences, this book is a trenchant examination of how racial integration can lead to a more robust and responsive democracy. (shrink)

The author argues for passing on a particular brand of feminism to next generations. The cultural archive to be passed on should be transnational, intersectional, interdisciplinary, relational and reflexive. In particular, the author focuses on processes and practices of racialization as they impact on and are practised within the discipline. In the current backlash against feminism and women’s studies in different parts of Europe, frequently divisionary tactics are deployed, by which women are pitted against each other, based on assumed (...) immutable differences which are conceived of as either ‘raciological’, ethnicized or as cultural, in such a way that ‘race’ enters again through the back door. The author argues that we need a European brand of feminism that is not complicit with the legacies of modernity, which continue to construct ‘race’. That is, we should be deeply concerned with thinking through the parameters of a viable anti-racist European women’s studies. By analysing various case studies, taken from the everyday Dutch reality at the beginning of this new millennium, the author shows the necessity and inescapability of the feminism she advocates. (shrink)

In 1995 the People's Republic of China passed a controversial Eugenics Law, which, after a torrent of international criticism, was euphemistically renamed the Maternal and Infant Health Law. Aimed at "the implementation of premarital medical checkups" to ensure that neither partner has any hereditary, venereal, reproductive, or mental disorders, the ordinance implies that those deemed "unsuitable for reproduction" should undergo sterilization or abortion or remain celibate in order to prevent "inferior births." Using this recent statute as a springboard, Frank Dikötter (...) explores the contexts and history of eugenics in both Communist China and Taiwan. Dikötter shows how beginning in Late Imperial China, Western eugenics was imported and combined with existing fears of cultural, racial, or biological degeneration in Chinese society, leading to government regulation of sexual reproduction. _Imperfect Conceptions_ is a revealing look at the cultural history of medical explanations of birth defects that demonstrates how Chinese assumptions about the relationship of the individual to society form the very core of their attitudes toward procreation. Dikötter explains the patrilineal model of descent, where a person is viewed as the culmination of his or her ancestors and is held responsible for the health of all future generations. By this logic, a pregnant woman's behavior and attitude directly influence the well-being of her baby, and a deformed or retarded child reflects a moral failing on the part of the parents. Dikötter also shows how the holistic medicine practiced in China blurs any distinction between individual and environment so that people are held responsible for illness. Drawing on cultural, social, economic, and political approaches, Dikötter goes beyond a simple authoritarian model to provide a more complex view of eugenic policy, showing how a variety of voices including those of popular journalists, social reformers, medical writers, sex educators, university professors, and politicians all disseminate information that supports rather than questions the state's program. _Imperfect Conceptions_ reveals how Chinese cultural currents--fear and fascination with the deviant and the urge to draw clear boundaries between the normal and the abnormal--have combined with medical discourse to form a program of eugenics that is viewed with alarm by the rest of the world. (shrink)

If each of the subtypes of autism is defined simply as constituted by a set of symptoms, then the criteria for its observation are straightforward, although, of course, some of those symptoms themselves might be hard to observe definitively. Compare with telling whether or not someone is bleeding: while it might be hard to tell if someone is bleeding internally, we know what it takes to find out, and when we have the right access and instruments we can settle the (...) issue. But matters are not so simple for the autism subtypes. For one thing, how do we settle which symptoms to group together under one heading? One key difference between “autism disorder” and “Asperger’s disorder” is that the former exhibit language delays (sometimes extreme), whereas the latter do not. But is that a sign of genuinely distinct conditions or is that an artifact of the distinct groups of subjects that Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger worked with? And in general, although there are certainly types of behavior that are taken to be indicative of autism, none by itself is taken by diagnosticians to be either necessary or sufficient for a definitive diagnosis for any of the autism subtypes. What is the diagnostician to do? This is not merely an academic issue, as many parents can attest. Are we in a situation, then, that each practitioner has his or her own “pet” signs that are the “real keys” to the diagnosis? That would suggest that the term “autistic” might meet the fate of the outdated term “neurotic,” which turned out to be a pseudo-scientific term for an inexact clumping together of unrelated phenomena. The assumption amongst specialists seems to be that we will reach the point with "autism" that we have with "water": there will be a root essence to autism whose presence or absence settles a diagnosis. If that is to be the case, however, we have to settle the level of application of the concept. Does the term apply to people who exhibit particular behaviors? Or is it possible to exhibit “autistic” behaviors without actually being autistic, because autism is instead a particular feature of the mind (as, for example, in Baron-Cohen’s “impaired theory of mind module” theory, discussed below) which usually but not necessarily has behavioral effects? Or is autism located instead in the brain, perhaps in damage to key areas, which in turn would typically have an effect on modules of the mind? Or perhaps autism is located in genetics or biology, so that some people with damage to the brain caused by accidents so that they exhibit autistic symptoms would not actually be autistic. Conversely, supposing one had an “autistic brain” but showed none of (or not a sufficient number of) the symptoms, would one not be autistic? The assumption is that the genotypes and phenotypes will line up neatly, but if they do not, what happens to the concept “autistic?” (There is an analogy in the philosophy of sex and gender: androgen insensitive individuals tend to self-identify as female and have outward female traits, but have XY chromosomes—should we go with chromosomes or self-identity in assigning sex category?) Finally, the implications for these complications for diagnosis and categorization, with the attendant social and medical implications is discussed. The typical assumption of the medical profession is that autism cannot be “cured.” That assumes that autism is not simply the symptoms. However, at the same time, the tests used to diagnose ASDs work simply from the symptoms (for example, Baron-Cohen’s Sally/Anne test, which ASD children of a certain age almost all fail, but which practically no ASD adult fails). This implies an inherent confusion over the status of the concept. I conclude that attempts to make sense of some true or accurate summary of what it is to be autistic (such as one would find in the DSM) are almost certainly misguided and will vanish into history along with “neurotic.” But as with racial terms, which are similarly shifting and perverse, the term has already passed into the public sphere and will have a lasting and dangerous influence beyond its short scientific shelf-life. (shrink)

The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked an unprecedented global wave of protests that appeared to mark a turning point in the battle against racial injustice. But protests against racism are not new; each comes and soon passes into the archives of history, leaving few lasting changes in its wake. What was different about the death of Floyd was that the graphic manner of its unfolding was captured on film: the slow act of wilful suffocation, and how (...) the entire world was seemingly invited to witness the torment and the execution of this man, in broad daylight, even as he cried I can't breathe. However, this discussion attempts to move beyond that moment of death, the protests that followed and the distracting debate about statues and monuments to argue that the death of Floyd must be seen as the culmination of the process of systemic and structural racism. It aims to show how racism shifted from the black body as the visible and material target of racial oppression to air/breath, and how suffocation became the characteristic feature as well as the weapon of contemporary racial injustice. (shrink)

The last two decades have seen a welcome erosion of traditional dogmas of Alexander scholarship, and a number of hallowed theories, raised on a cushion of metaphysical speculation above the mundane historical evidence, have succumbed to attacks based on rigorous logic and source analysis. The brotherhood of man as a vision of Alexander is dead, as is the idea that all Alexander sources can be divided into sheep and goats, the one based on extracts from the archives and the other (...) mere rhetorical fantasy. One notable theory, however, still flourishes and has indeed been described as one of the few certainties among Alexander's aims. This is the so-called policy of fusion. As so often, the idea and terminology go back to J. G. Droysen, who hailed Alexander's marriage to Rhoxane as a symbol of the fusion of Europe and Asia, which the king recognised as the consequence of his victory. At Susa the fusion of east and west was complete and Alexander, as interpreted by Droysen, saw in that fusion the guarantee of the strength and stability of his empire. Once enunciated, Droysen's formulation passed down the mainstream of German historiography, to Kaerst, Wilcken, Berve and Schachermeyr, and has penetrated to almost all arteries of Alexander scholarship. Like the figure of Alexander himself the theory is flexible and capable of strange metamorphoses. In the hands of Tarn it developed into the idea of all subjects, Greek and barbarian, living together in unity and concord in a universal empire of peace. The polar opposite is an essay of Helmut Berve, written in the heady days before the Second World War, in which he claimed that Alexander, with commendable respect for Aryan supremacy, planned a blending of the Macedonian and Persian peoples, so that the two racially related Herrenvölkerwould lord it over the rest of the world empire. On Berve's interpretation the policy had two stages. Alexander first recognised the merits of the Iranian peoples and placed them alongside the Macedonians in his court and army hierarchy. Next came the ‘Blutvermischung’, the integration of the two peoples by marriage. (shrink)

This paper raises health equity concerns about the use of passports for domestic and international travel to certify COVID-19 vaccination. Part I argues that for international travel, health equity objections undercut arguments defending vaccine passports, which are based on tholding people responsible, protecting global health, safeguarding individual liberty and continuing current practice. Part II entertains a proposal for a scaled down vaccine passport for domestic use in countries where vaccines are widely and equitably available. It raises health equity concerns related (...) to racial profiling and fairness to people who are vaccine cautious. Part III sets forth a proposal for a flexible pass that certifies people who have been vaccinated, tested, previously infected or granted a conscientious objection. It sets ethical guidelines for the timing and use of flexible passes that promote equity, public health education, antidiscrimination, privacy and flexibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface This special issue provokes a conversation between decolonial and postcolonial feminisms by asking what they are, how they speak about each other, and how they can speak to each other. Read together, the articles engage and sometimes trouble the temporal and spatial distinctions drawn between decolonial and postcolonial approaches. Kiran Asher explores overlaps between decolonial and postcolonial thought by comparing the ideas of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Silvia (...) Rivera Cusicanqui on representation. Aimee Carrillo Rowe also stages a dialogue between these approaches when interrogating her family ’s Chican@ settler history. Tiara R. Na’puti and Judy Rohrer offer an account of how recent scholarship from Hawai‘i and Guåhan (Guam) has elaborated Indigenous epistemologies in settler contexts. Two articles excavate colonialism’s relationship to science: Jennifer Hamilton, Banu Subramaniam, and Angela Willey explore how two instances of population genetic research illustrate the racialized knowledge systems that undergirded colonialism, while Sandra Harding points out how the colonization of Latin America contributed to the edifice of Western science. In a related vein, Breny Mendoza centers the material role of Abya Yala (the preferred term for Latin America) in not just Spanish colonialism but British colonial expansionism and eventually the eclipsing of China. Patricia A. Schechter reflects on her trajectory as a scholar and teacher of US women’s history and the insights she has gained through 504Preface engaging decolonial scholarship. Amy Piedalue and Susmita Rishi argue for a more expansive understanding of postcolonial feminism’s reach as they review recently published titles in the field. Although Anna Tsing and Paulla Ebron’s review of feminist scholarship about the Anthropocene does not directly mention postcolonial or decolonial approaches, it nonetheless engages relevant scholarship on the environmental impact of settler modernization and capitalism. An art essay by Hyunji Kwon introduces the largely unrecognized paintings of former comfort woman Duk-kyung Kang (1929–1997) and focuses on the potential of Kang’s work to challenge Japanese colonial hierarchies. Our featured poets in this issue are Emily Zhang, Megan Kaminski, and Raina J. León. Both postcolonial and decolonial scholars have been committed to critiquing the material and epistemic legacies of colonialism. The distinctions that are frequently drawn between the two approaches, however, have been a source of disquiet to the editors of Feminist Studies, and they prompted our journal’s call for papers in 2016. A common temporal marking that concerned us was the eclipsing of postcolonialism, which was increasingly becoming viewed as passé, and a setting up of decolonial feminism as always already better in time. Decolonial approaches sometimes depicted postcolonial feminism as being only about the past, despite postcolonial feminism’s stated commitment to studying the continuing impact of colonial processes and its complex use of the prefix “post.” Our concern was, as well, with misrepresentations of postcolonial feminist priorities. The depiction of postcolonial feminism as deconstructive, abstract, elite theory confined to the ambit of modern colonial knowledge systems overlooked the important quandaries that postcolonial feminism raised about how to represent marginalized people ethically and, indeed, how to understand the very desire to represent the marginalized—whether or not we claim belonging to them. Postcolonial feminists warned against an easy embrace of alterity, noting that the desire for positioning oneself outside colonialism could naively ignore the power of colonial discourses to frame colonialism’s Other. Another set of hopes for this special issue was to dwell on the spatial markings of decolonial and postcolonial feminisms: decolonial feminism is often associated with Indigenous scholars and those from the Americas, and postcolonial feminism with scholars from South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These regional emphases, although not always as tidy as sometimes depicted, have produced distinct intellectual Preface 505 priorities. We must heed decolonial feminism’s insistence on engaging with the genocidal history of settler colonialism, the current manifestations of the violent dispossession of land, and its constitution of gendered racial capitalism the world over. (FeministStudies will soon publish a special issue on Indigenous Feminisms). Yet, if postcolonial feminism is circumscribed geographically to only South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, we risk ignoring its powerful transcontinental mapping of imperial gender formations and its scrupulous attention to the ethics of representing... (shrink)

In 2014, the first three volumes of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks—the personal and philosophical notebooks that he kept during the war years—were published in Germany. These notebooks provide the first textual evidence of anti-Semitism in Heidegger’s philosophy, not simply in passing remarks, but as incorporated into his philosophical and political thinking itself. In Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy, Peter Trawny, the editor of those notebooks, offers the first evaluation of Heidegger’s philosophical project in light of the (...) Black Notebooks. While Heidegger’s affiliation with National Socialism is well known, the anti-Semitic dimension of that engagement could not be fully told until now. Trawny traces Heidegger’s development of a grand “narrative” of the history of being, the “being-historical thinking” at the center of Heidegger’s work after Being and Time. Two of the protagonists of this narrative are well known to Heidegger’s readers: the Greeks and the Germans. The world-historical antagonist of this narrative, however, has remained hitherto undisclosed: the Jews, or, more specifically, “world Judaism.” As Trawny shows, world Judaism emerges as a racialized, destructive, and technological threat to the German homeland, indeed, to any homeland whatsoever. Trawny pinpoints recurrent, anti-Semitic themes in the Notebooks, including Heidegger’s adoption of crude cultural stereotypes, his assigning of racial reasons to philosophical decisions, his endorsement of a Jewish “world conspiracy,” and his first published remarks on the extermination camps and gas chambers. Trawny concludes with a thoughtful meditation on how Heidegger’s achievements might still be valued despite these horrifying facets. Unflinching and systematic, this is one of the most important assessments of one of the most important philosophers in our history. (shrink)