This article looks at the International Biological Program as the predecessor of UNESCO’s well-known and highly successful Man and the Biosphere Programme. It argues that international conservation efforts of the 1970s, such as the MAB, must in fact be understood as a compound of two opposing attempts to reform international conservation in the 1960s. The scientific framework of the MAB has its origins in disputes between high-level conservationists affiliated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (...) about what the IBP meant for the future of conservation. Their respective visions entailed different ecological philosophies as much as diverging sets of political ideologies regarding the global implementation of conservation. Within the IBP’s Conservation Section, one group propagated a universal systems approach to conservation with a centralized, technocratic management of nature and society by an elite group of independent scientific experts. Within IUCN, a second group based their notion of environmental expert roles on a more descriptive and local ecology of resource mapping as practiced by UNESCO. When the IBP came to an end in 1974, both groups’ ecological philosophies played into the scientific framework underlying the MAB’s World Network or Biosphere Reserves. The article argues that it is impossible to understand the course of conservation within the MAB without studying the dynamics and discourses between the two underlying expert groups and their respective visions for reforming conservation. (shrink)

Public surveys conducted in many countries report widespread willingness of individuals to donate a kidney while alive to a family member or close friend, yet thousands suffer and many die each year while waiting for a kidney transplant. Advocates of financial incentive programs or “regulated markets” in kidneys present the problem of the kidney shortage as one of insufficient public motivation to donate, arguing that incentives will increase the number of donors. Others believe the solutions lie—at least in part—in facilitating (...) so-called “altruistic donation;” harnessing the willingness of relatives and friends to donate by addressing the many barriers which serve as disincentives to living donation. Strategies designed to minimize financial barriers to donation and the use of paired kidney exchange programs are increasingly enabling donation, and now, an innovative program designed to address what has been termed “chronologically incompatible donation” is being piloted at the University of California, Los Angeles, and elsewhere in the United States. In this program, a person whose kidney is not currently required for transplantation in a specific recipient may instead donate to the paired exchange program; in return, a commitment is made to the specified recipient that priority access for a living-donor transplant in a paired exchange program will be offered when or if the need arises in the future. We address here potential ethical concerns related to this form of organ “banking” from living donors, and argue that it offers significant benefits without undermining the well-established ethical principles and values currently underpinning living donation programs. (shrink)

Existing ethical frameworks for public health provide insufficient guidance on how to evaluate the risks of public health programs that compromise the best clinical interests of present patients for the benefit of others. Given the relevant similarity of such programs to clinical research, we suggest that insights from the long‐standing debate about acceptable risk in clinical research can helpfully inform and guide the evaluation of risks posed by public health programs that compromise patients’ best clinical interests. We discuss (...) how lessons learned regarding the ethics of risk in one context can be fruitfully transferred to the other, using the example of a so‐called ‘rational antibiotic use’ guideline that limits antimicrobial prescribing in order to curb antimicrobial resistance. (shrink)

Recent evidence, from both epidemiological and animal experimental studies, suggest that the very first environment, the intrauterine, is extremely important in determining the future health of the individual. Genetic and ‘lifestyle’ factors impinge on, and can exacerbate, a ‘programming’ effect of an adverse fetal environment. In this review, we present compelling evidence to suggest that one of the major organs affected by an unfavourable prenatal environment is the kidney. Many of the factors that can affect fetal renal development (i.e. (...) exposure to excess glucocorticoids, insufficient vitamin A, protein/calorie malnutrition (in rats) and alterations in the intrarenal renin angiotensinogen system), also produce hypertension in the adult animal. When nephron number is compromised during kidney development, maladaptive functional changes occur and can lead, eventually, to hypertension and/or renal disease. Surprisingly, it is during the very earliest stages of kidney development that the vulnerability to these effects occurs. BioEssays 25:212–220, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Managing non-communicable diseases in crisis-affected and fragile humanitarian contexts requires special attention because primary health care systems often collapse or become compromised in such settings. As a result, addressing and managing these diseases become more challenging. Humanitarian organizations that intervene in crisis situations are increasingly including NCD management in the services they support and provide; however, they encounter a range of issues such as ensuring the quality of care, sustainability of programs, and the possibility of unintended harms. This case study (...) explores ethical considerations raised by a mobile NCD program run by an international humanitarian organization in a country affected by a protracted civil war. (shrink)

Nuclearization of South Asia always remains the most imperative concern for the international community particularly when In May 1998, India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices which plunged South Asia into a relentless nuclear arms race. Since then, the nuclearization of South Asia has been a reality but the region is as insecure as it was before. Historically, Pakistan’s nuclear program has been a subject of contention with the Western world. Pakistan has worked hard and successfully to build diverse nuclear (...) capabilities. It will preserve these capabilities for the predictable future as a necessary deterrent against perceived existential threats from India. The objective of this study is to provide historical background of the initiatives undertaken by Pakistan towards the development of its nuclear program and highlight the major challenges and hurdles that stood in the way of achieving this goal. Paper conclude that under the present turbulent regional and international environment, Pakistan should carefully weigh its options to become an internationally acceptable normal nuclear state without compromising its genuine security concerns. It is hoped that the finding of this qualitative work would not only facilitate scholars and experts of international relations, but also be a massive contribution for the students in this field. (shrink)

Rapid tissue donation (RTD) is an advancing oncology research procedure for collecting tumors, metastases, and unaffected tissue 2–6 h after death. Researchers can better determine rates of progression, response to treatment, and polymorphic differences among patients. Cancer patients may inquire about posthumous body donation for research to offer a personal contribution to research; however, there are barriers to recruiting for an RTD program. Physicians must reassure the patient that their treatment options and quality of care will not be compromised due (...) to participating in RTD. In this commentary we discuss how theories of altruism may explain cancer patients’ desire to participate in an RTD program, the ethical concerns of health care professionals and patients and the use of altruism as a recruitment strategy. We offer recommendations for examining the cultural and ethical climate of the institution prior to initiating such a program such as examining the relationship of healthcare professionals and patients, identifying ethical concerns, and examining ways to promote acceptance and buy-in across professionals, patients, and families. (shrink)

The Joint International Conference on Logic Programming, sponsored by the Association for Logic Programming, is a major forum for presentations of research, applications, and implementations in this important area of computer science. Logic programming is one of the most promising steps toward declarative programming and forms the theoretical basis of the programming language Prolog and its various extensions. Logic programming is also fundamental to work in artificial intelligence, where it has been used for nonmonotonic (...) and commonsense reasoning, expert systems implementation, deductive databases, and applications such as computer-aided manufacturing. Krzysztof R. Apt is project leader at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam and part-time Professor in Computer Science at the University of Amsterdam. Topics covered: Theory Foundations. Programming Languages. Implementation. Programming Methodologies and Tools. Applications. Deductive Databases. Artificial Intelligence. Parallelism. (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

The First International Workshop brings together researchers from the theoretical ends of the logic programming and artificial intelligence communities to discuss their mutual interests. Logic programming deals with the use of models of mathematical logic as a way of programming computers, where theoretical AI deals with abstract issues in modeling and representing human knowledge and beliefs. One common ground is nonmonotonic reasoning, a family of logics that includes room for the kinds of variations that can be found (...) in human reasoning. Topics covered: Stable Semantics. Default Logic. AutoEpistemic Logic. Truth Maintenance Systems. Implementation Issues. Diagnosis. Applications. Inheritance Reasoning. Logics of Belief. Inconsistency and Non-Monotonicity. (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction (...) by one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems. (shrink)

In this paper we show that it is possible to eliminate the converse operator from the propositional dynamic logic CPDL (Converse PDL), without compromising the soundness and completeness of inference for it. Specifically we present an encoding of CPDL formulae into PDL that eliminates the converse programs from a CPDL formula, but adds enough information so as not to destroy its original meaning with respect to satisfiability, validity, and logical implication. Notably, the resulting PDL formula is polynomially related to the (...) original one. This fact allows one to build inference procedures for CPDL, by encoding CPDL formulae into PDL, and then running an inference procedure for PDL. (shrink)

This article attempts to study cost minimizing multi-objective fractional solid transportation problem with fuzzy cost coefficients c ˜ i j k r {\tilde{c}}_{ijk}^{r}, fuzzy supply quantities a ˜ i {\tilde{a}}_{i}, fuzzy demands b ˜ j {\tilde{b}}_{j}, and/or fuzzy conveyances e ˜ k {\tilde{e}}_{k}. The fuzzy efficient concept is introduced in which the crisp efficient solution is extended. A necessary and sufficient condition for the solution is established. Fuzzy geometric programming approach is applied to solve the crisp problem by defining (...) membership function so as to obtain the optimal compromise solution of a multi-objective two-stage problem. A linear membership function for the objective function is defined. The stability set of the first kind is defined and determined. A numerical example is given for illustration and to check the validity of the proposed approach. (shrink)

Appearing between two historical touchstones—the alleged end of communism and the 100th anniversary of Nietzsche’s death—this book offers a provocative hypothesis about the philosopher’s afterlife and the fate of leftist thought and culture. At issue is the relation of the dead Nietzsche and his written work to subsequent living Nietzscheanism across the political spectrum, but primarily among a leftist _corps_ that has been programmed and manipulated by concealed dimensions of the philosopher’s thought. If anyone is responsible for what Geoff Waite (...) maintains is the illusory death of communism, it is Nietzsche, the man and concept. Waite advances his argument by bringing Marxist—especially Gramscian and Althusserian—theories to bear on the concept of Nietzsche/anism. But he also goes beyond ideological convictions to explore the vast Nietzschean influence that proliferates throughout the marketplace of contemporary philosophy, political and literary theory, and cultural and technocultural criticism. In light of a philological reconstruction of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished texts, _Nietzsche’s Corps/e_ shuttles between philosophy and everyday popular culture and shows them to be equally significant in their having been influenced by Nietzsche—in however distorted a form and in a way that compromises all of our best interests. Controversial in its “decelebration” of Nietzsche, this remarkable study asks whether the postcontemporary age already upon us will continue to be dominated and oriented by the haunting spectre of Nietzsche’s corps/e. Philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and those interested in western Marxism, popular culture, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the intersection of French and German thought will find this book both appealing and challenging. (shrink)

In the tradition of quantified modal logic, it was assumed that significantly different linguistic systems underlie reference to individuals, to times and to ‘possible worlds’. Various results from recent research in formal semantics suggest that this is not so, and that there is in fact apervasive symmetrybetween the linguistic means with which we refer to these three domains. Reference to individuals, times and worlds is uniformly effected through generalized quantifiers, definite descriptions, and pronouns, and in each domain grammatical features situate (...) the reference of terms as near, far or ‘further’ from the actual or from a reported speech act. We outline various directions in which a program ofontological symmetrycould be developed, and we offer in theAppendixa symmetric fragment developed in a logic that can be seen as a compromise between an extensional and an intensional system. (shrink)

The recent debate on pragmatics and the law has found ways to circumvent an important distinction, originally drawn by Dascal and Wróblewski (1991), between the historical law-maker, the current law-maker, and the ideal/rational law-maker.1 By insisting on the relationship between the rational law-maker and contextualism and textualism (see Manning 2005, 2006), I want to redress this fault in current discussions. In this paper, I start with general considerations on pragmatics, intentionality in ordinary conversation, and intentionality in the context of judiciary (...) proceedings and legal texts. I then move on to considerations on rationality as a prerequisite for understanding the law and on the rational law-maker, an ideal construct proposed by Dascal and Wróblewski (1991). I argue that contextualism (of the moderate kind) is the best way to carry out the program by Dascal and Wróblewski on interpretation and the rational law-maker (also see considerations by Fish 2005); (on contextualism see Dascal and Weizman 1987). I argue that bearing in mind the rational law-maker postulated by Dascal and Wróblewski is a guidance to interpretation of statutes whose texts create interpretative difficulties. I conclude by saying that the considerations on the rational law-maker constitute a compromise between Scalia’s (1997) textualism and contextualism (see Manning 2005, 2006 on the divide between textualism and contextualism). (shrink)

In the tradition of quantified modal logic, it was assumed that significantly different linguistic systems underlie reference to individuals, to times and to 'possible worlds'. Various results from recent research in formal semantics suggest that this is not so, and that there is in fact a pervasive symmetry between the linguistic means with which we refer to these three domains. Reference to individuals, times and worlds is uniformly effected through generalized quantifiers, definite descriptions, and pronouns, and in each domain grammatical (...) features situate the reference of terms as near, far or 'further' from the actual or from a reported speech act. We outline various directions in which a program of ontological symmetry could be developed, and we offer in the Appendix a symmetric fragment developed in a logic that can be seen as a compromise between an extensional and an intensional system. (shrink)

Traditional explanations of multistable visual phenomena (e.g. ambiguous figures, perceptual rivalry) suggest that the basis for spontaneous reversals in perception lies in antagonistic connectivity within the visual system. In this review, we suggest an alternative, albeit speculative. explanation for visual multistability - that spontaneous alternations reflect responses to active, programmed events initiated by brain areas that integrate sensory and non-sensory information to coordinate a diversity of behaviors. Much evidence suggests that perceptual reversals are themselves more closely related to the expression (...) of a behavior than to passive sensory responses: (1) they are initiated spontaneously, often voluntarily, and are influenced by subjective variables such as attention and mood; (2) the alternation process is greatly facilitated with practice and compromised by lesions in non- visual cortical areas; (3) the alternation process has temporal dynamics similar to those of spontaneously initiated behaviors; (4) functional imaging reveals that brain areas associated with a variety of cognitive behaviors are specifically activated when vision becomes unstable. In this scheme, reorganizations of activity throughout the visual cortex, concurrent with perceptual reversals, are initiated by higher, largely non- sensory brain centers. Such direct intervention In the processing of the sensory input by brain structures associated with planning and motor programming might serve an important role in perceptual organization, particularly in aspects related to selective attention. (shrink)

In everyday conversations, professional codes, policy debates, and academic literature, the concept of respect is referred to frequently. Bioethical arguments in recent decades equate the idea of respect for persons with individuals who are capable of autonomous decision-making, with the focus being explicitly on ‘autonomy,’ ‘capacity,’ or ‘capability.’ In much of bioethics literature, respect for persons is replaced by respect for autonomy. Though the unconditional respect for persons and their autonomy (irrespective of actual decision-making capacity) is established in Kantian bioethics, (...) current argument and debates often revolve around a thin concept of autonomy, focusing on capacity and capability: persons are owed respect because they are ‘rational beings’ or with a focus on ‘agency’ and ‘decision-making abilities.’ However, these aspects alone are insufficient while engaging the concept of respect for persons, particularly in healthcare settings. This paper sets out to explore if the concept of respect for persons—as opposed to a thin concept of autonomy—could help us engage better in healthcare practices. We shall probe the practical value of the experiential aspect of respect—understood as the recognition of persons as respect-worthy through certain dispositions and deliberative acts—by reflecting on instances in clinical practice that tend to be dismissed as negligible or even unavoidable in a stressful environment such as a busy hospital. We shall argue that these instances are far from trivial but carry moral significance and express an unacceptable—disrespectful—attitude that can compromise the moral habitus in hospital settings. In our conclusion, we call for practicing recognition respect in the health professional–patient encounter by focussing on manners, attitudes, and behaviors. Furthermore, we call for continuous medical ethics education programs to address the moral significance of disrespectful behaviors and their manifestations in particular socio-cultural contexts. (shrink)

Interest in the topic of wisdom-focused education has so far not resulted in empirically validated programs for teaching wisdom. To start filling this void, we explore the emerging empirical evidence concerning the fundamental elements required for understanding how one can foster wisdom, with a particular focus on wise reasoning. We define wise reasoning through a combination of intellectual humility, recognition of world in flux/change, open-mindedness to diverse viewpoints, and search for compromise/integration of diverse perspectives. In this article, we review (...) evidence concerning how wise reasoning can be facilitated through experiences, teaching materials, environments and cognitive strategies. We also focus on educators, reviewing emerging evidence on how the process of explaining and guiding others impacts one’s wisdom. We conclude by discussing the development of wisdom-focused education, proposing that greater attention to the situational demands and the variability in wisdom-related characteristics across social contexts should play a critical role in its development. (shrink)

Traditional explanations of multistable visual phenomena (e.g. ambiguous figures, perceptual rivalry) suggest that the basis for spontaneous reversals in perception lies in antagonistic connectivity within the visual system. In this review, we suggest an alternative, albeit speculative, explanation for visual multistability – that spontaneous alternations reflect responses to active, programmed events initiated by brain areas that integrate sensory and non-sensory information to coordinate a diversity of behaviors. Much evidence suggests that perceptual reversals are themselves more closely related to the expression (...) of a behavior than to passive sensory responses: (1) they are initiated spontaneously, often voluntarily, and are influenced by subjective variables such as attention and mood; (2) the alternation process is greatly facilitated with practice and compromised by lesions in non-visual cortical areas; (3) the alternation process has temporal dynamics similar to those of spontaneously initiated behaviors; (4) functional imaging reveals that brain areas associated with a variety of cognitive behaviors are specifically activated when vision becomes unstable. In this scheme, reorganizations of activity throughout the visual cortex, concurrent with perceptual reversals, are initiated by higher, largely non-sensory brain centers. Such direct intervention in the processing of the sensory input by brain structures associated with planning and motor programming might serve an important role in perceptual organization, particularly in aspects related to selective attention. (shrink)

This article interrogates the bureaucratization of war, incarnate in the covert lethal drone. Bureaucracies are criticized typically for their complexity, inefficiency, and inflexibility. This article is concerned with their moral indifference. It explores killing, which is so highly administered, so morally remote, and of such scale, that we acknowledge a covert lethal program. This is a bureaucratized program of assassination in contravention of critical human rights. In this article, this program is seen to compromise the advance of global justice. (...) Moreover, the bureaucratization of lethal force is seen to dissolve democratic ideals from within. The bureaucracy isolates the citizens from lethal force applied in their name. People are killed, in the name of the State, but without conspicuous justification, or judicial review, and without informed public debate. This article gives an account of the risk associated with the bureaucratization of the State’s lethal power. Exemplified by the covert drone, this is power with formidable reach. It is power as well, which requires great moral sensitivity. Considering the drone program, this article identifies challenges, which will become more prominent and pressing, as technology advances. (shrink)

In 2003, the pharmaceutical company Biovail received a spate of negative publicity around a program for its heart medication Cardizem LA. For a three-month period Biovail paid US doctors US$1000 (and their office managers US$150) for patient data when at least 11 of their patients renewed a prescription to Cardizem. Doctors who signed up for the trial but who did not keep 11 patients on the drug received US$250 for participation. According to Biovail, this was a research trial, meeting US (...) federal regulations for research trials – the consulting firm that had designed the trial had guaranteed that it would meet US criteria. The trial was expected to provide data that would help ‘in designing future clinical trial programs’, according to Biovail’s vice-president of finance. In addition, the results would eventually be published. However, the program was originally presented as a marketing campaign, and was being handled by Biovail’s sales department and sales force. According to ethicists who commented on the case, a US$1000 payment to doctors was unusually high for a post-marketing research trial, and a US$150 payment to office managers was thought to raise novel ethical conflicts. Cardizem is a drug intended for long-term use, so paying doctors to get patients started on a course of treatment could lead to substantial profits from these prescriptions. In line with this, immediate comments from professional ethicists and representatives of medical associations focused on questions about whether the Biovail campaign amounted to paying doctors to prescribe specific drugs. And that is a concern for the obvious reason that it has the potential to compromise doctors’ decisions about best care. Payments for prescriptions place doctors in ethically difficult situations: Peter Singer, a medical ethicist, says ‘There is clearly the potential for [physicians’] conflict of interest’ (Toronto Globe and Mail, 2003). Physicians’ decision-making is the most common locus of discussion in medical ethics.. (shrink)

Stem cell policy in the United States is an amalgam of federal and state policies. The scientific development of human pluripotent embryonic stem cells triggered a contentious national stem cell policy debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The Bush “compromise” that allowed federal funding to study only a very limited number of ESC derived cell lines did not satisfy either the researchers or the patient advocates who saw great medical potential being stifled. Neither more restrictive legislation (...) nor expansion of federal funding proved politically possible and the federal impasse opened the door for a variety of state-based experiments. In 2004, California became the largest and most influential state venture into stem cell research by passing “Prop 71,” a voter initiative that created a new stem cell agency and funded it with $3 billion. Several states followed suit with similar programs to protect the right of investigators to do stem cell research and in some cases to invest state funding in such projects. Other states devised legislation to restrict stem cell research and in five states, criminal penalties were included. Thus, the US stem cell policy is a patchwork of multiple, often conflicting, state and federal policies. (shrink)

Zhejiang's aesthetic education has developed rapidly in recent years, especially in the context of global aesthetic education that promotes the integration of noble culture with popular culture and emphasizes diversity, compromise, and reproducibility. In light of this year's high reexamination of aesthetic education by the country, provinces, and cities, aesthetic education has been elevated to a new level. However, existing aesthetic education still has problems, such as the indistinguishability of aesthetic education and art education concepts, the one-sidedness of aesthetic (...) education content, and the shortage of aesthetic education teachers. These problems have long affected the development of Zhejiang's aesthetic education. The issue of promoting aesthetic education has become a major concern for aesthetic education teachers throughout the province and even the country. Therefore, this article focuses on the current situation and problems of Zhejiang's aesthetic education. A comparison of the current status and achievements of Taiwan's aesthetic education with Zhejiang, drawing on each other's experience, learning from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and in-depth research on teachers' performance in aesthetic education, aesthetic education training programs, and campus cultural construction, and other aspects is put forward. A series of implementation plans for the promotion of aesthetic education, such as "synergy training" and "education of people with a view," was provided as a practical experiment and a theoretical reference for promoting the rapid development of aesthetic education in the country. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson exalts the transition from the aristocratic to the modern ethic of debt as one of the most significant cultural achievements of capitalism. Whereas the debitor was once forced to compromise his liberty, dignity, and equality, today the rights and freedoms of insolvents are legally protected, and disadvantaged members of the community can readily obtain credit without personal supplication. Anderson’s intuition was, until recently, widely shared. Then came the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the ensuing global recession, triggered (...) by mass defaults among “sub-prime” borrowers. Many had entered the mortgage market with no proof of income, no assets behind them, no down-payment, a chequered credit history, and a generally reduced repayment capacity. Suddenly a flurry of criticism was unleashed against the lowering of credit standards and the government programs which pressured lenders to service the poor. My aim in this paper is not to assess the democratization of credit from the point of view of economic efficiency or political prudence, but rather to provide a much needed ethical appraisal. Any number of reasons might be advanced for why a particular government policy is morally objectionable. I will concentrate on the least controversial reason conceivable: the policy violates the rights of citizens. Whether this is true of government-driven credit-democratization - specifically, whether it violates the rights of the lenders compelled to act as agents of the policy, the rights of the third parties exposed to the risks associated with the expansion of credit markets, or both – is the question that I take up here. (shrink)

At no time in the past century have there been fiercer battles over our public schools than there are now. Parents and educational reformers are challenging not only the mission, content, and structure of mass compulsory schooling but also its underlying premise—that the values promoted through public education are neutral and therefore acceptable to any reasonable person. In this important book, Rosemary Salomone sets aside the ideological and inflammatory rhetoric that surrounds today’s debates over educational values and family choice. She (...) offers instead a fair-minded examination of education for democratic citizenship in a society that values freedom of conscience and religious pluralism. And she proposes a balanced course of action that redefines but does not sever the relationship between education and the state. Salomone demonstrates how contemporary conflicts are the product of past educational and social movements. She lays bare some of the myths that support the current government monopoly over education and reveals how it privileges those of economic means. Through a detailed case study of recent controversy in a suburban New York school district, the author explores the legal and policy issues that arise when widely disparate world views stand in the way of political compromise on educational materials, techniques, and programs. Salomone builds a case for educational governance that places the developmental needs of the child at the center of family autonomy. She advances a plan that respects diverse values and visions of schooling while preserving the core commitments that bind our nation. (shrink)

Software ownership allows the owner to restrict the distribution of software and to prevent others from reading the software’s source code and building upon it. However, free software is released to users under software licenses that give them the right to read the source code, modify it, reuse it, and distribute the software to others. Proponents of free software such as Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen argue that the social disutility of software ownership is a sufficient justification for prohibiting (...) it. This social disutility includes the social instability of disregarding laws and agreements covering software use and distribution, inequality of software access, and the inability to help others by sharing software with them. Here I consider these and other social disutility claims against withholding specific software rights from users, in particular, the rights to read the source code, duplicate, distribute, modify, imitate, and reuse portions of the software within new programs. I find that generally while withholding these rights from software users does cause some degree of social disutility, only the rights to duplicate, modify and imitate cannot legitimately be denied to users on this basis. The social disutility of withholding the rights to distribute the software, read its source code and reuse portions of it in new programs is insufficient to prohibit software owners from denying them to users. A compromise between the software owner and user can minimise the social disutility of withholding these particular rights from users. However, the social disutility caused by software patents is sufficient for rejecting such patents as they restrict the methods of reducing social disutility possible with other forms of software ownership. (shrink)

A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one’s own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results (...) in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics—the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

Research indicates that the well‐being and productivity of over 100 million people in the global workforce may be compromised by posttraumatic stress (PTS). Given that work‐related experiences are often the source of the trauma that leads to PTS, and that PTS due to any cause can interfere with employees’ job performance, organizations would do well to consider the antecedents and consequences of PTS. This review of research—primarily within fields adjacent to business—on the types, antecedents, consequences, and organizational implications of PTS (...) is presented to advance inquiry within the field of business. The definition of PTS requires attention to the new classification of complex posttraumatic stress disorder that can result from threats that are not life‐threatening such as bullying and sexual harassment. PTS antecedents include organizational and extraorganizational traumas, and risk and resilience factors. Absenteeism, impaired cognitive functioning, strained relationships, and growth are among the consequences of PTS. Organizations can assist through disaster planning, empathetic leaders, mental health literacy initiatives, and employee assistance programs. Many research questions arise that, when answered, will allow organizations to better understand how they can improve employee productivity and well‐being by attending to PTS. (shrink)

Phonological opacity and paradigmatic effects (“synchronic analogy”) have long been of interest in relation to change, naturalness, and the phonology/morphology interface. Their investigation has now acquired a new urgency, because they call into question OT’s postulate that constraints are evaluated in parallel. Conceptually, parallelism is one of the basic and most interesting tenets of OT, and so there are good methodological reasons to try hard to save it in the face of such recalcitrant data. The price to be paid for (...) it is the introduction of otherwise unneeded powerful new types of Faithfulness constraints, such as Output/Output (O/O) con- straints, Paradigm Uniformity constraints, and Sympathy constraints, which have turned out to compromise the OT program very severely. (shrink)

Though written corporate codes of ethics have been touted as a panacea for the embarrassments and uncertainties of the past two decades, the absence of clear evaluation procedures severely compromises their usefulness. An ethnographic study comparing development processes and compliance outcomes in large health care facilities and energy companies shows that neither of the two industries has encountered much success with a codes of ethics program. Companies that distribute copies of their code of ethics seldom ensure the process is completed (...) or that employees understand the purpose of the document, and staff responsible for the code give it a low priority relative to their overall responsibilities. Contrary to expectations, health care facilities are no more likely to develop or implement codes of ethics effectively than are energy companies. More extensive research is needed in order to generate the data necessary for the development of realistic standards for the evaluation of codes of ethics. (shrink)

There is an increasing need for quality in ethics consultations, though there have been significant achievements in the United States and Europe. However, fundamental concerns that place the profession in jeopardy are discussed from the perspective of the U.S. in a manner that will be helpful for other countries. The descriptive component of the essay (the first two points) explains the achievements in ethics quality (illustrated by the IntegratedEthics program of the Veterans Health Administration) and the progress on standards and (...) competencies for ethics consultations (represented by the Core Competencies of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities). Based on these achievements, the analytical component of the essay (the final three points) identifies and seeks to resolve three fundamental concerns (with increasing levels of importance) that compromise quality in ethics consultations: standards of quality; professionalism; and credentialing. The analysis argues for clearer standards of quality in ethics consultation and urges further professionalism by explaining the need for the following: interpreting the ASBH core competencies in a normative manner, developing a Code of Ethics, and clarifying the meaning of best practices. However, the most serious concern that threatens quality in ethics consultations is the lack of a credentialing process. This concern can be resolved effectively by developing an independent Ethics Consultation Accreditation Council to accredit and standardize graduate degree programs, fellowship experiences, and qualifying examinations. This credentialing process is indispensable if we are to strategically enhance quality in ethics consultations. (shrink)

The increased incidences of academic misconduct in universities are compromising the reputation of higher education in Australia and increasing the work of academics responsible for the delivery of quality learning outcomes to students. Confronted with increasing instances of academic dishonesty in university classrooms, universities play a pivotal role in ensuring their academic staff are well-equipped with academic integrity knowledge. It is therefore important to understand academic staff perspectives about the training their workplaces could provide them on academic integrity. Specifically, this (...) qualitative case study explores the opinions and perceptions of sessional or casual university academic staff on what content they would like to know about academic integrity, and how this knowledge could best be delivered to them. The study found that participants were genuinely interested in furthering their understanding of academic integrity issues, particularly in the areas of contract cheating, effective use of plagiarism detection tools, and developing a toolkit of skills that they could use to detect and deter plagiarism. In terms of the delivery of academic integrity training programs, webinars and orientation sessions were suggested as effective delivery mechanisms. Imparting knowledge about the content areas through the identified delivery mechanisms could enhance teaching faculty’s understanding of student academic dishonesty and how to curb this behaviour proactively. (shrink)

In this dissertation we present proof systems for several modal logics. These proof systems are based on analytic (or semantic) tableaux. -/- Modal logics are logics for reasoning about possibility, knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and other modalities. Their semantics are almost always based on Saul Kripke’s possible world semantics. In Kripke semantics, models are represented by relational structures or, equivalently, labeled graphs. Syntactic formulas that express statements about knowledge and other modalities are evaluated in terms of such models. -/- This dissertation (...) focuses on modal logics with dynamic operators for public announcements, belief revision, preference upgrades, and so on. These operators are defined in terms of mathematical operations on Kripke models. Thus, for example, a belief revision operator in the syntax would correspond to a belief revision operation on models. -/- The ‘dynamic’ semantics of dynamic modal logics are a clever way of extending languages without compromising on intuitiveness. We present ‘dynamic’ tableau proof systems for these dynamic semantics, with the express aim to make them conceptually simple, easy to use, modular, and extensible. This we do by reflecting the semantics as closely as possible in the components of our tableau system. For instance, dynamic operations on Kripke models have counterpart dynamic relations between tableaux. -/- Soundness, completeness, and decidability are three of the most important properties that a proof system may have. A proof system is sound if and only if any formula for which a proof exists, is true in every model. A proof system is complete if and only if for any formula that is true in all models, a proof exists. A proof system is decidable if and only if any formula can be proved to be a theorem or not a theorem in a finite number of steps. All proof systems in this dissertation are sound, complete, and decidable. -/- Part of our strategy to create modular tableau systems is to delay concerns over decidability until after soundness and completeness have been established. Decidability is attained through the operations of folding and through operations on ‘tableau cascades’, which are graphs of tableaux. -/- Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of our dynamic tableau system for public announcement logic in the Clojure programming language. (shrink)

This essay analyzes one of Germany's former premier research institutions for biomedical research, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics (KWIA) as a test case for the way in which politics and human heredity served as resources for each other during the Third Reich. Examining the KWIA from this perspective brings us a step closer to answering the questions at the heart of most recent scholarship concerning the biomedical community under the swastika: (1) How do we explain (...) why the vast majority of German human geneticists and eugenicists were willing to work for the National Socialist state and, at the very least, legitimized its exterminationist racial policy; and (2) what accounts for at least some of Germany's most renowned medically trained professionals' involvement in forms of morally compromised science that wholly transcend the bounds of normal scientific practice? Although a complete answer to this question must await an examination of other German biological research centers, the present study suggests that during the Nazi period the symbiotic relationship between human genetics and politics served to radicalize both. The dynamic between the science of human heredity and Nazi politics changed the research practice of some of the biomedical sciences housed at the KWIA. It also simultaneously made it easier for the Nazi state to carry out its barbaric racial program leading, finally, to the extermination of millions of so-called racial undesirables. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Adventures of Telemachus [1699] by François de Salignac de la Mothe-FénelonJean–Michel RacaultFrançois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon. The Adventures of Telemachus [1699]. Translated with an introduction and notes by A. J. B. Cremer. London, Anastasis Books, 2022, 419 pp. Hardbound £24.50. Paperback £15. ISBN: 9781739798314.Fénelon’s 1699 novel The Adventures of Telemachus—or more precisely, the epic poem in prose—was one of the major bestsellers in many European countries (...) for nearly two centuries. The book inspired paintings, operas, fashions, and even wallpaper motifs. It gave birth to a literary subgenre, the “archeological novel,” such as Terrasson’s Sethos (1731) or Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s L’Arcadie (1788), in which the action is located in an antique setting. Still part of French schools’ syllabi a century ago, this book mainly owes its survival today to highly specialized academic research, stimulated from time to time when an “Agrégation” program generates new publications, papers, and conferences, as happened in 2009–10. The situation is similar in English-speaking countries, if perhaps just a bit worse: new editions are scarce and generally based more or less on revised versions of eighteenth-century translations, such as those editions by John Hawkesworth’s (1768) or Tobias Smollett’s (1776).The publication by A. J. B. Cremer of an entirely new translation, featuring a close rendering of the French text into modern English and preserving the original’s formal dignity without resorting to a pastiche of the classical language, is therefore a landmark in the history of Fénelon’s reception, and in the valuation of Telemachus particularly. This edition, while intended for the general reader, includes most of what is expected of a scholarly edition. In a comparatively short introduction, the editor recalls the essential facts about the author’s background (as a descendent of high nobility) and about his ecclesiastic career, which was compromised by both his involvement in mystical spirituality (the quarrel over Quietism) and his critical attitude toward the absolutism of Louis XIV’s régime. [End Page 140]In fact, Fénelon’s appointment as Archbishop of Cambrai (1695) was a kind of exile. In 1689, however, he was appointed tutor to Louis XIV’s seven-year-old grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy, second in the line of succession to the throne after his father (though both died prematurely). Fénelon wrote for this boy The Adventures of Telemachus as an educative fiction in the tradition of the “mirrors of Princes.” Of course, such a book was not intended for publication, and when it appeared in 1699—strangely enough, in a fully legal manner and with a printing privilege—it was against Fénelon’s will and in a very faulty form, which was corrected in later editions. An editor today therefore faces solving some highly complex textual problems, and choosing between the manuscript traditions. Cremer’s translation is based upon Jacques Le Brun’s authoritative text, published in Fénelon’s Œuvres, tome II (Paris: Gallimard, “Pléiade,” 1997).1After surveying the critical reception of Telemachus, particularly in England, starting at the text’s first publication and reaching the present time, the introduction discreetly hints at an apparent trend, among some interpretations, toward Christian allegory. If the figure of Mentor obviously “represents Fénelon” in his tutorial role, Cremer notes, this character, also an incarnation of Minerva, embodies humanity and divinity simultaneously, and thus may be seen as a “Christ-figure,” with Telemachus as his disciple and Ulysses, with his pursuit of a never-ending quest, as the symbolic form of the Divine. These observations are not entirely new; they have been formulated before by various critics. The editor himself concurs with a well-known article by André Blanc that describes Fénelon’s neo-platonician turn of mind: for Fénelon there is no contradiction between Christian revelation and the pagan fables of classical mythology, which he considers prefigurations or allegories of Christianity.This interpretation is abundantly and convincingly confirmed in the editor’s annotations. While as expected the commentaries point frequently to Greco-Latin mythology or classical literary sources... (shrink)

During the 1840s and the 1850s botanist Joseph Hooker developed distinct notions about the proper characteristics of a professional man of science. While he never articulated these ideas publicly as a coherent agenda, he did share his opinions openly in letters to family and colleagues; this private communication gives essential insight into his and his X-Club colleagues' public activities. The core aspiration of Hooker's professionalization was to consolidate men of science into a dutiful and centralized community dedicated to national well-being. (...) The nation in turn owed the scientific community for its ministration. When the government bestowed funds and status on men of science it was rewarding science -- not purchasing it. His proposed reforms were piecemeal, immediate, and above all practical. He harbored no taste for vast millenarian transformation, and rested his conception of scientific professionalism upon a respectable High Victorian foundation of patronage and pillars of duty, reciprocity, intimacy, and inequality. The process of professionalization he envisioned was as much shrewd compromise between existing interests as a vindication of principle. His power and prestige from the mid-1850s onward gave him considerable ability to carry out his reform program, although his general success did occasion some undesired consequences for the status of natural-history pursuits. (shrink)

For most of his career, Kant accepts Augustine's requirement that lying requires an intention to deceive. However, he eventually converts to Aquinas, following him in rejecting this requirement in favor of Aristotle's teleological conception of lying. This change of view amounts to an improvement, for it makes room for the possibility of lying to an omniscient being—and such lies, we argue, are indeed possible. We accompany these historical and philosophical theses with a biographical thesis taking the form of the following (...) story. Kant believed that in his youth he had lied to God, largely because of his religious training. He adopted policies designed to help him resist the habit of lying to God. However, this program conflicted with his desire to lead a well‐rounded life as a public intellectual. This worldly ambition led him to forego the Quaker solution to the problem of lying to God: refuse to swear any oath to God, avoid set prayers and hymns, decline offers of intercession by clergy. Kant's worldly compromise served him well, but as he entered his twilight years, he came to worry that his only surviving argument for theism—the moral argument—might constitute a relapse into the vice of lying to God. (shrink)

I propose that the interpretation which I present of Nietzsche's central text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, enables us to construct an account of his positive contribution to moral philosophy. I maintain herein that Nietzsche advances an aretaic moral program. That is, he is primarily concerned not with promoting right action, but with promoting a virtuous state of character. ;Negatively stated, my thesis represents a challenge to the standard interpretation of Nietzsche as an amoral critic who equates the good life with a (...) voluntaristic legislation of anti-social values. I maintain that Nietzsche's famous debunking of the canonical values of the Western moral tradition is in fact designed to clear the way for a revaluation of our approach to morality as an enterprise. According to Nietzsche, virtually all accounts of moral excellence hitherto have presupposed the deficiency of mankind. The moral enterprise has thus been understood as a systematic campaign to improve mankind by redeeming this original deficiency. In short, Nietzsche's critical position comes down to this: man cannot very well flourish if his pursuit of happiness is predicated on a view of himself as morally deficient. ;Nietzsche therefore recommends a moral program which pre- supposes the sufficiency of mankind: human nature requires no improvement in the traditionally moral sense. I have identified as the exemplar of these virtues of self-sufficiency the notorious Ubermensch; here again my interpretation of Nietzsche runs counter to the standard readings of his philosophy. The Ubermensch as a virtuous type is characterized by his command of a coherent and meaningful agency: because his pursuit of the good life is predicated on a prejudice in favor of his own sufficiency, he flourishes. ;Because of the unique problems of presentation which would attend a moral program based on man's sufficiency, I concentrate my attention on a non-standard philosophic text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Indeed, I propose that Zarathustra embodies Nietzsche's oblique contribution to moral excellence. That is, after having exposed the practicum absurdum of slave morality, he cannot then reject it on moral grounds without thereby compromising his original commitment to man's sufficiency. He therefore restricts himself to an aesthetic critique of slave morality. (shrink)

The greatest intensity of “live” life is captured from as close as possible in order to be borne as far as possible away. Jacques Derrida. Echographies of Television . Rainer Ganahl has made a study of studying. As part of his extensive autobiographical art practice, he documents and presents many of the ambitious educational activities he undertakes. For example, he has been videotaping hundreds of hours of solitary study that show him struggling to learn Chinese, Arabic and a host of (...) other languages. The stacked boxes of tapes are then presented like minimalist monoliths, dense archives of effort. About fifteen years ago, Ganahl began photographing the lectures that he attends. At the time, he hadn’t seen anyone else doing it, so besides his spare selection of images of the speaker and the audience, much of the time the lectures would just pass into memory, undocumented, or recorded in writing alone. Since then, he has felt the transition to digital cause a significant shift in his process. At the same time, he has seen the habit become ubiquitous as others photograph, record, and videotape the lectures all around him. In keeping with the theme of this inaugural issue of continent. , can we propose each small grouping of photographs that result an isthmus stretching between two disparate bodies of mind? The first being the body of the lecture as spelled out in the title of each work – the experience of the event in all its constituent parts. The second is the body of the recipient, the listener, in this case an artist, who plays a minimal role just beyond the prescripted behavior of sitting and listening. He uses a gesture of documentation to draw a line between himself and the event, creating an artwork. Františka + Tim Gilman: As we mentioned before, the theme of the magazine for this issue is "isthmus." It seems like a very good way into your work, and it leads us to ask what connection you see between your photographs of the lecture and the lecture itself? Rainer Ganahl: The relationship is of course a concrete, pictorial one, or if you want a mimetic one but also an abstract one because the photographs carry the title of the lecture, the names of the lecturers, the site, the institution and the time of the lecture. Photos are fixed moments of time and can reproduce images displayed and reproduce visuals presented at a moment but they don’t come with time based recordings that video or sound takes are offering. What remains of a lecture is usually just the memory, some notes and all the announcements of it. In my case I end up with a visual product I declare as my artwork. It might not differ from any snapshot taken by any other student or member of the audience but I do this in a semi-systematic way with certain rules and procedures I have set up. While I am at a lecture I am mainly focusing on the lecture itself. Last night I went to one of Slavoj Žižek which demanded quite some concentration. I even was asking him a question at the end. I took photos as well but still didn’t lose track of the lecture. I didn’t walk around, I was not preoccupied by where I was sitting and what light I was having like some of the other photographing and filming people in the room who came and left, moved around and tried to capture him from this and that angle, from close and far. I just sat there and concentrated on the lecture and yet managed to take about 30 or so images of him, the public around me and of the film clips he presented. Once the lecture is over the story changes: it all becomes a question of the images, their selection, their visual qualities, their labeling and archiving. The function of the images also change: not only do they stand for an intellectual event in a row of lectures that become part of my intellectual history within many possible such histories but they also have to function as art, something not everybody else with images of lecturers demands of their images. This is my specific claim as an artist to impose them as artworks. And as with all artistic propositions the offer can be accepted or rejected. I basically spend my life trying to do exactly that: making what I declare as art, offering something to anybody interested in it as my art, an offer that is not and will never be accepted as such by all people. F+T: What are your criteria for selection, i.e. how do you choose which lectures to photograph, by lecturer, by topic, or do you photograph any and every lecture you can? RG: As everything in my life, I go by my interest which is the result of many factors. If I am aware of a lecturer, read his books or appreciate his works my interest of attending his much higher than if I am not aware of it. I usually don’t go to lecturers simply based on their subjects—something that can happen of course, if the subject, the title of the lecture is promising or at the heart of my interest. Sometimes I also wait for years to get a change to photograph certain people but I do that in a very low-level “keep your ears up” mentality and not in a systematic scanning of all channels and possibilities. I do not go into philosophy departments and photograph everybody teaching there. I go with the flow—and unfortunately a great deal of great talks I also miss because I hear too late of them. Often, I also stumble into them by traveling, by getting emails from friends and by simply being in the right spot at the right time. Somehow you could look at my lecture par cours as some kind of loose intellectual flâneurism . If you know of interesting lectures and events, please, let me know. F+T: Is your selection of images more of a production or post-production method? That is, do you take a lot of photos and select only a few images from each lecture, or do you take them very selectively? Do you have a particular methodology for the selection of images? RG: This all changed a bit with the arrival of digital photography. In the beginning I had to pay a lot of money for film developing. Hence, I was taking either one role - 36 images - or half a role - 13 images - depending on who talked and whether they projected images. With the unlimited capacity of digital imaging I easily end up between 30 and 150 images of one event still depending of whether images are presented or not. In the first years of that project when I wasn’t fully aware yet of what I was doing, I printed at least 2 images of any lecture and sometimes three or even four, a choice that was also constrained by costs. But again, since I have a web site and since images can easily be selected and presented on my web site without generating remarkable costs I have now more and more pain to reduce them to less than ten or eight images for an event. Now, before I have them printed which really is expensive, I can present them already as artwork on my web site without any immediate costs. Thus the economic factor is at the end of the chain which enables me to be more ‘generous’ and include more images. Over the last years I have been mostly selecting at least four photographs for a lecture unit but recently also as many as ten. But so far only one set above four images has been actually printed and sold. What might sound even more shocking is the likely fact that if a curator or a collector demands me to reduce the number of images due to costs, I might compromise at this current stage if the images have not been yet printed or published outside my own web site. This means that to a certain degree any selection that has only seen publication on my web site and not yet been produced runs the risk to change in numbers of images included. Needless to say, I am the last one that finally makes a decision and I do honor all given earlier decision if those were final. F+T: How do you feel the act of photographing the lecture affects your reception of the contents of the lecture? And your recollection afterwards, do you remember the lecture more having photographed it, or just having sat and listened? RG: As mentioned above, I get very little distraction from photographing since I can multitask well and do not obsess about the quality of the image: I photograph from where I am and listen with my ears and not my eyes. I am not sure whether the images serve as a mnemonic devise to the content of the lecture if there are no images involved but they at least remind me that the lecture existed, the title of the lecture and the name of the people and institutions involved. The titles of the hundreds of lectures I took during the past 15 years can also be read as an essay of theoretical life in that period. This will be come more and more visible as time passes by. These images age much better than I do. F+T: You mentioned at the outset of our discussions that you started this practice some time ago and have seen the practice of photographing lecturers become more commonplace. Why do you think that this shift has taken place? RG: The answer is very simple. Photographing is now free of any charge and hence omnipresent. You buy a phone or any other personal digital assistant and it has a camera integrated in it whether you want it or not. There is no need to develop images and there is no hassle to keep images, to distribute images, to organize images and save them. It is all virtual, not creating any costs and doesn’t require any efforts. You don’t spend twenty dollars for photo-developing anymore, you don’t need to walk anymore to your pharmacy or your photo shop to drop off and return to pick up and pay. You don’t need to go to the post office to send somebody a picture. You have a program like Photoshop already built into your camera. Photographing is now a thing for everybody—with functioning cameras made for two year olds. It is technically now nearly impossible to make bad images. The image quality is virtually guaranteed by cheap, high performing, mini-computers packed into miniscule cameras. With all these technological changes, we are undergoing now a cultural paradigm shift that includes permanent recording (not only still image taking) of everything. I wonder even whether babies are just born to be photographed—at least a process where the first photograph is right there. What is interesting now, is how the law is trying to catch up. I am experiencing and expecting more restrictions on photographing and recording—something already in place in many museums and in certain galleries—as the recording devices become more and more invisible and undetectable. It is an interesting cat and mouse play and will end up with some of us that are photographing the world around us in court. The world has become very transparent and everybody is contributing to it with social networking technologies—like twitter and Facebook—that are designed to monitor and communicate every step we make in our lives. F+T: Why did you start the practice? As a way to remember, or to capture the experience of the lecture and the environment there? RG: A couple of years earlier I started to photograph my own reading seminars as part of my art work with results that surprised me positively. I really liked these images of students and people discussing heavy non-fiction with me. The reading seminars justified this kind of pictorialism. Then in 1995 I had the chance to attend an entire seminar by Edward Said entitled “The Representation of Intellectuals at Columbia University,” which really gave me the idea to start this series. Why not also photograph these lectures I visit all the time since this really is a way of representing intellectuals? F+T: The constellation of images and the title seem like a kind of portrait, do you agree? If so, is it a portrait of the speaker, of yourself, or of the event? RG: Well, to follow up on the previous question the lectures are more than just portraits of lecturers since I include not only the speakers but also the audience, an audience that is not named or specifically highlighted as is the speaker. So if we stick with the metaphor of the portrait we would have to extend it also to the environment, the class room, the lecture hall, the arrangements of seats or benches, tables, lecture stands and other stuff typically seen on my images. Often the walls are decorated or even tagged with graffiti or posters and other stuff. There is a big difference between a small seminar room at the English Department of Columbia University, full with books and cabinets and a lecture room at a Paris or Frankfurt university that accommodates 50 to 150 people. We should, maybe, also distinguish between lectures that are one time events—mostly open to the public, free of charge or paid—and events that are weekly, closed to the public and held mostly in universities that can cost fortunes or be paid by the State as it is still predominantly the case in continental Europe. All this, of course, is not necessarily announced in the title of the lecture and is subject to information that isn’t visible on the images. To a certain degree we see also portraits of a general privilege when it comes to the public of certain institutions that are highly selective and extremely costly without forgetting that most of the lectures are dealing with theory, art, philosophy and other highbrow subjects. In general, I would say we see very little if we don’t know already what’s going on, who the lecturer, the institutions, the context are in which we subsequently can zoom into variants like sexual, racial, or age-related make-up without ignoring clothing fashions, hair styling, body mannerisms, gadgets and stuff. F+T: Do you see a relation between this body of work and your other work, for example your language studies? RG: Everything I do is “unfortunately” related. I say unfortunately because this makes my work not so easy to grasp. The relationship to the language studies is relatively clear since both are originally grounded in the domain of education and knowledge production. Nearly all my work comes across that nexus where knowledge and power are addressed. I was at one point wondering what the relationship was to some of my earlier indexical work where I was happy alone with footnotes from books painted on the walls: I came to understand that both are just different manifestations of knowledge and information. F+T: Do you foresee continuing the series indefinitely, or is there an end to it? RG: I think that I will continue this series indefinitely or to be more precise, as long as I go listen to lectures and want to learn something which brings me to your previous question: What do the reading seminars, language studies, historical research and lecture hopping have in common: I learn something. Further Reading Rainer Ganahl’s website William Kaizen. “ Vulgar Politics .” art&education . April 2009. Web. Smith, Roberta. “ Rainer Ganahl: ‘Language of Emigration & Pictures of Emigration .’” New York Times April 23 2010. Web. (shrink)

This article focuses on the rise of world history and the challenges it poses to curricula that emphasize history in service to national or civilizational identity. The nature and causes of the world history movement are juxtaposed to the continuing or renewed attachment to more nationalist history. Specific clashes around world history, particularly but not exclusively in the United States, have focused on opposing views about history and identity. Compromises continue to results, as well as clear delays in world history (...) interest in many regions and many programs. Yet world history continues to gain ground, fundamentally because, at its best, it provides many of the tools needed for responsible understanding of globalization past and present. (shrink)