Addressing the needs of both professionals and laypersons and drawn from the author's varied experiences in psychiatry, this study attempts to locate and describe the elusive therapeutic environment within which psychological healing most effectively takes place.

A reprint of the 1973 edition, with a new preface.

Magnetic north -- Dark times in the city of light -- Everything is possible -- Mankind is not so kind -- The pleasure of his company -- The road to Damascus twice -- La peste -- Le système Girard -- The zero hour of culture -- Lotus Land -- The Darwin of the human sciences -- Who asks about the souls of these men? -- Terra Incognita -- Hand in hand.

There is an increased focus on fostering integrity in research by through creating an open culture where research integrity dilemmas can be discussed. We describe a pilot intervention study that used Moral Case Deliberation (MCD), a method that originated in clinical ethics support, to discuss research integrity dilemmas with researchers. Our research question was: can moral case deliberation in research groups help to navigate research integrity dilemmas? We performed 10 MCDs with 19 researchers who worked in three different research groups (...) from three different disciplinary fields at a university in the Netherlands. We analyzed the dilemmas and values discussed, sent out a survey questionnaire to assess self-perceived moral competencies, and conducted in-depth interviews. We found research integrity dilemmas pertained to authorship disputes, supervision of junior co-workers, and questionable handling of data. Participants perceived the majority of moral competencies to a higher degree during the MCD when compared to perceiving them in daily practice afterward. Interviewees told us that they felt most comfortable discussing dilemmas among peers with whom they were not closely affiliated. We conclude that MCD sessions could be relevant in navigating research integrity dilemmas, but that revisions to ensure commitment and safety are required. (shrink)

BackgroundThe emphasis on impact factors and the quantity of publications intensifies competition between researchers. This competition was traditionally considered an incentive to produce high-quality work, but there are unwanted side-effects of this competition like publication pressure. To measure the effect of publication pressure on researchers, the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) was developed. Upon using the PPQ, some issues came to light that motivated a revision.MethodWe constructed two new subscales based on work stress models using the facet method. We administered the (...) revised PPQ (PPQr) to a convenience sample together with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ). To assess which items best measured publication pressure, we carried out a principal component analysis (PCA). Reliability was sufficient when Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7. Finally, we administered the PPQr in a larger, independent sample of researchers to check the reliability of the revised version.ResultsThree components were identified as ‘stress’, ‘attitude’, and ‘resources’. We selected 3 × 6 = 18 items with high loadings in the three-component solution. Based on the convenience sample, Cronbach’s alphas were 0.83 for stress, 0.80 for attitude, and 0.76 for resources. We checked the validity of the PPQr by inspecting the correlations with the MBI and the WDQ. Stress correlated 0.62 with MBI’s emotional exhaustion. Resources correlated 0.50 with relevant WDQ subscales. To assess the internal structure of the PPQr in the independent reliability sample, we conducted the principal component analysis. The three-component solution explains 50% of the variance. Cronbach’s alphas were 0.80, 0.78, and 0.75 for stress, attitude, and resources, respectively.ConclusionWe conclude that the PPQr is a valid and reliable instrument to measure publication pressure in academic researchers from all disciplinary fields. The PPQr strongly relates to burnout and could also be beneficial for policy makers and research institutions to assess the degree of publication pressure in their institute. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is increasing evidence that research misbehaviour is common, especially the minor forms. Previous studies on research misbehaviour primarily focused on biomedical and social sciences, and evidence from natural sciences and humanities is scarce. We investigated what academic researchers in Amsterdam perceived to be detrimental research misbehaviours in their respective disciplinary fields.MethodsWe used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. First, survey participants from four disciplinary fields rated perceived frequency and impact of research misbehaviours from a list of 60. We then (...) combined these into a top five ranking of most detrimental research misbehaviours at the aggregate level, stratified by disciplinary field. Second, in focus group interviews, participants from each academic rank and disciplinary field were asked to reflect on the most relevant research misbehaviours for their disciplinary field. We used participative ranking methodology inducing participants to obtain consensus on which research misbehaviours are most detrimental.ResultsIn total, 1080 researchers completed the survey (response rate: 15%) and 61 participated in the focus groups (3 three to 8 eight researchers per group). Insufficient supervision consistently ranked highest in the survey regardless of disciplinary field and the focus groups confirmed this. Important themes in the focus groups were insufficient supervision, sloppy science, and sloppy peer review. Biomedical researchers and social science researchers were primarily concerned with sloppy science and insufficient supervision. Natural sciences and humanities researchers discussed sloppy reviewing and theft of ideas by reviewers, a form of plagiarism. Focus group participants further provided examples of particular research misbehaviours they were confronted with and how these impacted their work as a researcher.ConclusionWe found insufficient supervision and various forms of sloppy science to score highly on aggregate detrimental impact throughout all disciplinary fields. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities also perceived nepotism to be of major impact on the aggregate level. The natural sciences regarded fabrication of data of major impact as well. The focus group interviews helped to understand how researchers interpreted ‘insufficient supervision’. Besides, the focus group participants added insight into sloppy science in practice. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities added new research misbehaviours concerning their disciplinary fields to the list, such as the stealing of ideas before publication. This improves our understanding of research misbehaviour beyond the social and biomedical fields. (shrink)

This book highlights some of the most pressing safety, ethical, legal and societal issues related to the diverse contexts in which robotic technologies apply. Focusing on the essential concept of well-being, it addresses topics that are fundamental not only for research, but also for industry and end-users, discussing the challenges in a wide variety of applications, including domestic robots, autonomous manufacturing, personal care robots and drones.

Xenophobic attitudes and violence have become regular phenomena in South Africa and other parts of the world. Xenophobia is of great concern not only to South Africans, but also to most developed countries or countries that are considered economically and politically viable by their neighbours, and which offer a safe haven for people who, for whatever reason, are forced to seek refuge elsewhere. Although xenophobia is not unique to South Africa, its most worrying aspect in South Africa is the government’s (...) inability to deal with this evil. The article seeks to challenge South Africa as a dominantly Ubuntu and Judeo-Christian influenced country to fight xenophobia through appealing to Ubuntu values and philoxenia. By Judeo-Christian, I mean religious beliefs and values that are common to both these religions, namely Judaism and Christianity. The article further suggests the ontology that perceives the ‘other’ as an extension of the self. It is argued that South African citizens are collectively responsible for acts of violence against foreign nationals and should thus look for a morally sustainable solution to this evil. The article relies heavily on the work of Kristeva, entitled Strangers to Ourselves, and on the work of Nussbaum, entitled Ubuntu: Reflections of a South African on Our Common Humanity, in Reflections, the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (shrink)

For the last thirty years, the nation's mental health and social service systems have been under relentless assault, with dramatically rising costs and the fragmentation of service delivery rendering them incapable of ensuring the safety, security, and recovery of their clients. The resulting organizational trauma both mirrors and magnifies the trauma-related problems their clients seek relief from. Just as the lives of people exposed to chronic trauma and abuse become organized around the traumatic experience, so too have our social service (...) systems become organized around the recurrent stress of trying to do more under greater pressure: they become crisis-oriented, authoritarian, disempowered, and demoralized, often living in the present moment, haunted by the past, and unable to plan for the future.Complex interactions among traumatized clients, stressed staff, pressured organizations, and a social and economic climate that is often hostile to recovery efforts recreate the very experiences that have proven so toxic to clients in the first place. Healing is possible for these clients if they enter helping, protective environments, yet toxic stress has destroyed the sanctuary that our systems are designed to provide.This thoughtful, impassioned critique of business as usual begins to outline a vision for transforming our mental health and social service systems. Linking trauma theory to organizational function, Destroying Sanctuary provides a framework for creating truly trauma-informed services. The organizational change method that has become known as the Sanctuary Model lays the groundwork for establishing safe havens for individual and organizational recovery. The goals are practical: improve clinical outcomes, increase staff satisfaction and health, increase leadership competence, and develop a technology for creating and sustaining healthier systems. Only in this way can our mental health and social service systems become empowered to make a more effective contribution to the overall health of the nation.Destroying Sanctuary is a stirring call for reform and recovery, required reading for anyone concerned with removing the formidable barriers to mental health and social services, from clinicians and administrators to consumer advocates. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:74 Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Jennifer L. Holland “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust”: Children and Young Adults in the Anti-Abortion Movement During the last three decades of the twentieth century, children across the United States regularly encountered adults who both hailed them as survivors of a holocaust and pleaded with them not to perpetrate one. These adults were not talking about war, (...) at least not in a traditional sense. They were talking about legal abortion. Children and young adults often heard this pitch in school presentations like one made in the mid-1970s by a California anti-abortion group, United Parents Under God, in which pictures of aborted fetuses (whose “feet will never kick a football... run on a playground... or play hopscotch”) and their imagined lost life stories were the centerpiece. Next to pictures of aborted fetuses were pictures of two prematurely born infants of color (the only people of color in the presentation) who were supposedly in danger under Roe v. Wade. With murder hovering in the air, activists asked their teen audience, “Is someone you love next?” According to these California anti-abortion activists, young people were physically and intellectually vulnerable to pro-choice views because they inhabited “atheistic” classrooms “where evil can no longer be called ‘evil.’” “You are quite literally ‘trapped’ in a completely ‘pagan’ situation in our secular society and schools and we must reach you anyway we can,” they continued. In the so-called “pro-life” worldview, liberals were brainwashing children and young people through the media, public schools, and many other institutions. Jennifer L. Holland 75 “Women’s liberal abortion speakers,” political scientists, “who typically work for the STATE” and for whom the “ends justify the means,” and new “secular-science textbooks”—all were trying to frighten teenagers to “into killing [their] OWN OFFSPRING,” activists said. Anti-abortion women, “ordinary women... who LOVE you” according to the California presentation, sought to protect children while feminist “witches... distort [ed] God’s purposes of sexuality.”1 In order to counteract what they viewed as corruption, anti-abortion activists had to wage a counter -battle, politicizing children in order to make them innocent again. In practice, that meant bringing the abortion wars—with their attendant graphic imagery and discussions of immorality, murder, and “holocausts ”—into the haven of childhood. From the movement’s early days, anti-abortion activists waged their fight in the name of innocent young people; abortion, they said, was a genocide of children. While these activists were certainly not the only US movement to use the supposed vulnerability of children to elicit public support for their cause, they also did something different. For the anti-abortion movement, children and young adults were more than just endangered innocents; they were also potential perpetrators. Young people, it seemed, were more liberal than their elders, having allegedly been reared in and indoctrinated by liberal culture. They seemed, in short, to be a potentially pro-choice generation. Thus, adult activists spoke more to and about young people at the end of the century. Adults needed young people to speak for fetuses as “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust,” but they also needed to convert and save America through them. The anti-abortion narrative of childhood vulnerability offered the restoration of social hierarchies as a solution to the problem of abortion. It was “women’s liberal abortion speakers” and feminist “witches” who were the sources of societal indoctrination. Pro-choice women separated sex and reproduction, thus undermining women’s role in society and changing their relationships with men. More subtly, anti-abortion 1. United Parents Under God, “That They May Live: A Presentation on Abortion,” n.d., folder 1, United Parents Under God Ephemeral Materials, Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. This publication was probably created in the early to mid-1970s because the few citations contained within are from between 1970 and 1973. 76 Jennifer L. Holland activists—who were almost always white—mourned the loss of past racial hierarchies while also envisioning theirs as a civil rights movement. In the California presentation mentioned above, activists explicitly compared abortion to mandated... (shrink)

Microscale techniques have been applied to biological assays for nearly two decades, but haven't been widely integrated as common tools in biological laboratories. The significant differences between several physical phenomena at the microscale versus the macroscale have been exploited to provide a variety of new types of assays (such as gradient production or spatial cell patterning). However, the use of these devices by biologists seems to be limited by issues regarding biological validation, ease of use, and the limited available readouts (...) for assays done using microtechnology. Critical validation work has been done recently that highlights the current challenges for microfluidic methods and suggest ways in which future devices might be improved to better integrate with biological assays. With more validation and improved designs, microscale techniques hold immense promise as a platform to study aspects of cell biology that are not possible using current macroscale techniques. BioEssays 30:811–821, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The relationships between female sex workers and their noncommercial male partners are typically viewed as sites of HIV risk rather than meaningful unions. This ethnographic case study presents a nuanced portrayal of the relationship between Cindy and Beto, a female sex worker who injects drugs and her intimate, noncommercial partner who live in Tijuana, Mexico. On the basis of ethnographic research in Tijuana and our long-term involvement in a public health study, we suggest that emotions play a central role in (...) sex workers’ relationships and contribute in complex ways to each partner's health. We conceptualize Cindy and Beto's relationship as a “dangerous safe haven” in which HIV risk behaviors such as unprotected sex and syringe sharing convey notions of love and trust and help sustain emotional unity amid broader uncertainties but nevertheless carry very real health risks. Further attention to how emotions shape vulnerable couples’ health remains a task for anthropology. (shrink)

We can think about the use of controlled substances in the treatment of anxiety disorders in two simple but diametrically opposed ways. First, we can say that anxiety disorders are trivial and require only acts of willpower, or, if anxiety disorders do require treatment, they are better treated without the use of benzodiazepines. When BZs are used to treat anxiety, they pose grave risks of addiction to the patients to whom these medicines are prescribed; they relieve patients’ symptoms, but are (...) the equivalent of a pharmacological “roach motel,” a haven into which many unsuspecting patients enter, but from which few emerge without becoming addicted. Patients must then face terrible struggles to free themselves of dependence on BZs, and this compounds the problem for which they sought treatment. Furthermore, the large number of prescriptions for BZs are a threat to the public health because these drugs are widely abused by alcoholics and drug addicts. (shrink)

We can think about the use of controlled substances in the treatment of anxiety disorders in two simple but diametrically opposed ways. First, we can say that anxiety disorders are trivial and require only acts of willpower, or, if anxiety disorders do require treatment, they are better treated without the use of benzodiazepines. When BZs are used to treat anxiety, they pose grave risks of addiction to the patients to whom these medicines are prescribed; they relieve patients’ symptoms, but are (...) the equivalent of a pharmacological “roach motel,” a haven into which many unsuspecting patients enter, but from which few emerge without becoming addicted. Patients must then face terrible struggles to free themselves of dependence on BZs, and this compounds the problem for which they sought treatment. Furthermore, the large number of prescriptions for BZs are a threat to the public health because these drugs are widely abused by alcoholics and drug addicts. (shrink)

Gary L. Cesarz - Spinoza's Book of Life: Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 361-362 Steven B. Smith. Spinoza's Book of Life: Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xxvi + 230. Cloth, $35.00. Smith's well-crafted narrative contributes substantially to revealing the moral and political intentions "at the core" of the Ethics . Its focus is the role and possibility (...) of freedom in Spinoza's metaphysics, based on Smith's thesis that a version of teleological eudaemonism and democratic politics are the principal themes of the Ethics. Indeed, Smith considers the Ethics a "founding document of . . . democratic individualism" . He places Spinoza in his Enlightenment context, building on known.. (shrink)

Praise for 50 Fast Digital Camera Techniques "Applying the lively techniques in this book will make anyone's digital camera a more productive tool." -Al Francekevich, professional photographer, on the first edition Your digital camera is an amazing and versatile creative tool, with features and capabilities you probably haven't even explored-until now. Here are step-by-step instructions for 50 hot new techniques that take advantage of all the latest camera features, fully illustrated with stunning color photos taken by the author. No matter (...) what type of digital camera you have, this book will help you create more professional pictures. Your guide to amazing results with your digital camera * Select the right shooting mode and change critical settings in seconds * Use exposure and focal length to get sharper photos * Shoot fantastic candid, nature, and pet pictures * Learn the secrets of shooting dramatic skyscapes and urban landscapes * Plan shots for creative digital manipulation * Download and print your photos or share them on the Web * Create a photographic essay or convert color shots to artsyblack-and-white. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While—as Yancy himself reminds us regularly in this book—philosophy may begin in wonder, it cannot end there. Philosophical thought must move from wonder to commitment, whether that commitment is to something as abstract as the nature of numbers or as morally pressing as the response to racism. Philosophy, however intellectual an exercise it may be, is only worth pursuing if it addresses what is important to us, and only if in philosophizing we commit ourselves to making a difference, to (...) transforming ourselves and to benefiting our fellows. I was particularly struck when reading Across Black Spaces by Prof. Yancy’s project of recovery, specifically his recovery of the work of Thomas Nelson Baker, Gilbert Haven Jones, and Joyce Mitchell Cook—three profoundly original African American philosophers whose achievements are largely ignored in America today. My interest in this section of the book was piqued in part because of my own experience, in close collaboration with my colleague Nalini Bhushan, in a recovery project. In that case we were working to recover the work of Indian philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th century whose work had fallen into obscurity. That project led us to reflect on our own reasons for engaging in this kind of history of philosophy. John Makeham’s work recovering the work of the early 20th‐Century New Confucians, who fused Buddhist Yogācāra, Confucian ethics, and Pragmatist philosophy of science provides another example of this kind of enterprise. Reflection on these projects constitutes the background for my own thoughts about Prof. Yancy’s similar project. (shrink)

Toxoplasma gondii is a highly successful parasite capable of infecting virtually all warm-blooded animals by actively invading nucleated host cells and forming a modified compartment where it replicates within the cytosol. The parasite-containing vacuole provides a safe haven, even in professional phagocytes such as macrophages, which normally destroy foreign microbes. In an effort to eliminate the parasite, the host up-regulates a family of immunity-related p47 GTPases (IRGs), which are recruited to the parasite-containing vacuole, resulting in membrane rupture and digestion of (...) the parasite. To avoid this fate, highly virulent strains of Toxoplasma coat the external surface of their vacuole with a secretory serine/threonine kinase, known as ROP18. At this host-pathogen interface, ROP18 phosphorylates and inactivates IRGs, thereby protecting the parasite from killing. These findings reveal a novel molecular mechanism by which the parasite disarms host innate immunity. (shrink)

This article examines five different Medical-Legal Partnerships associated with Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut to illustrate how MLP addresses the social determinants of poor health. These MLPs address varied and distinct health and legal needs of unique patient populations, including: 1) children; 2) immigrants; 3) formerly incarcerated individuals; 4) patients with cancer in palliative care; and 5) veterans. The article charts a research agenda to create the evidence base for quality and evaluation metrics, capacity building, sustainability, and best (...) practices; it also focuses specifically on a research agenda that identifies the value of the lawyers in MLP. Such a focus on the “L” has been lacking and is overdue. (shrink)

This study reexamines the existentialist nature of Walker Percy's fiction, arguing that his debt to Kierkegaard is more substantial than previously acknowledged. Others have noted his employ of Kierkegaardian stages, terminology, and artistic indirection, but they haven't revealed the extent to which his sources lie in Kierkegaard and the action of his novels occurs within the context of a "Kierkegaardian narrative." Prior critics have overstated both the role his protagonist's "searches" and the assistance of others play in their movement to (...) faith. This study rejects the Marcelian reading of Percy's endings and demonstrates that his characters follow a Kierkegaardian path toward faith; they do not move toward faith via the assistance of an other, but subjectively, by despairing of their efforts to find ontological answers in immanent sources and choosing, in the midst of that despair, a paradoxical faith. ;Chapter one pairs Kierkegaardian philosophy with views espoused by Percy in his nonfiction and interviews in order to establish their intellectual affinities: each uses art as a means of responding to the objectifying forces of rationalism and posits a movement toward self which necessitates the embrace of faith after despairing of an aesthetic existence. The second and third chapters provide extended Kierkegaardian readings of The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman, tracing their sources to his philosophy and demonstrating how each can be read within a Kierkegaardian framework and as a tacit either/or. Percy's protagonists either "come to themselves" by despairing of their own searches and realizing a subjective faith , or they remain in Kierkegaard's aesthetic stage, separated from faith, and thus lost to themselves . Both readings of Percy's novels reveal the ways in which he continually adopts Kierkegaardian categories, images, and details as he works within the larger framework of the paradoxical movement toward faith. The study concludes by emphasizing the Christian character of the narratives of Kierkegaard and Percy and arguing that a strict Kierkegaardian reading of Percy's fiction is more illuminating than the use of multiple existentialist perspectives. (shrink)

This study explored attachment networks in long-term couples who differed in parenting choice and relationship status. Attachment networks were defined in terms of attachment functions, attachment strength, the presence of a primary figure, and full-blown attachments. Participants were 198 couples, married or cohabiting, either expecting their first child or childless-by-choice. Results indicated that partners were the most significant figures on all indicators. However, expectant women reported more proximity seeking and stronger attachments to mothers, while expectant men relied more on fathers (...) for safe haven. Married participants indicated less proximity seeking to partners than cohabiting couples, and married women reported less reliance on partners for safe haven than married men and cohabiting women. This study supports previous findings underlining the particular importance of partners for members of long-term couples. Further, it extends past research by showing the robustness of this finding across parenting choice, and by revealing gender differences in the attachment networks of committed couples. (shrink)

Justice, Luck, and Knowledge (JLK) contributes to recent developments in two areas, moral responsibility and distributive justice. Prominent luck‐neutralizing approaches to distributive justice, exemplified in work by Cohen and by Roemer, argue that justice requires equal distribution of goods for which people aren't responsible. Such views of justice haven't focused attention on responsibility itself. Meanwhile, responsibility has been illuminat‐ingly articulated in work including, and influenced by, Frankfurt's seminal essays. My book brings these separate lines of work, on justice and on (...) responsibility, into contact, examining how the new articulation of responsibility constrains the roles responsibility can play in distributive justice. Part I focuses on responsibility and its inverse correlate, luck; Part II assesses responsibility‐based approaches to justice in light of preceding arguments about responsibility. (See JLK, 4–5 on responsibility, reactive attitudes, and accountability.). (shrink)

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has caused shortages of life-sustaining medical resources, and future waves of the virus may cause further scarcity. The Yale New Haven Health System developed a triage protocol to allocate scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the primary goal of saving the most lives possible, and a secondary goal of making triage assessments and decisions consistent, transparent, and fair. We outline the process of developing the protocol, summarize the protocol, and discuss the major ethical challenges (...) encountered, along with our answers to the challenges. These challenges include (1) the role of age and chronic comorbidities; (2) evaluating children and pregnant patients; (3) racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health; (4) prioritization of healthcare workers; and (5) balancing clinical judgment versus protocolized assessments.We conclude with a review of the limitations of our protocol and the lessons learned. We hope that a robust public discussion of such protocols and the ethical challenges they raise will result in the fairest possible processes, less need for triage, and more lives saved during future waves of the pandemic and similar public health emergencies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950Eva L. CorredorA History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950, by René Wellek; xvii & 458 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, $42.50.The seventh volume of René Wellek’s history of modern criticism may well be the most interesting of his eight-volume monumental oeuvre. Devoted to German, (...) Russian, and Eastern European criticism between 1900 and 1950, it exemplifies most strikingly Wellek’s personal battles with critics who were roughly his contemporaries and closest to his own European background. “I should like to think of my History as ‘elucidatory,’ as not ‘argumentative’ or ‘polemical’” (v, xxi), Wellek writes, but he does not shrink from expressing his own critical perspective usually in a gentlemanly humorous or ironical, but occasionally also quite harsh and stubborn fashion. He insists on the importance of individual value judgments in critical analysis, particularly when they are his own: “I do not believe that... my views and those of my contemporaries will be replaced by completely different assumptions” (“Reflections on my History,” The Attack on Literature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 145).Since Wellek rejects the idea of a historical determinism and thinks that “an evolutionary history of criticism must fail” (The Attack, p. 144), he provides less a history than a collection of essays in which he offers succinct appraisals of writers, thinkers and critics both as individuals and as participants in the broader literary movements of the century. He presents “portraits” (p. xv), which he also calls “doxographies” (The Attack, p. 143), containing a vast amount of quotations carefully selected to support the authority of his own views or to let them speak for themselves when he would rather not comment.More than any previous work, this volume embodies Wellek’s will and determination to carry on against all odds even when he can no longer do so on his own. An accident in 1986 left him bedridden and dependent on students and secretaries to help him with his research and writing. He was able to draw on a wealth of previously published essays, some of which had been written more than three decades ago. There are some arguable inaccuracies and shortcomings (his canon includes obscure writers but not Adorno and [End Page 259] again no women writers), and problems with his bibliographies and references. Yet Wellek’s unique talent to assemble in one volume half a century of critical commentary on the literatures of half a dozen different cultures appears intact. So do his well-known critical positions.Among his most interesting essays are those on Spitzer, Auerbach, Ingarden, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, highly erudite men in whose company Wellek enjoys moving. On the other hand, some extraordinarily fertile minds and their enormous influence on the post-1950 critical discourse are often quickly dismissed or treated with unnecessary condescension. Young Roman Jakobson “should be forgotten” (p. 372). Freud’s psychoanalysis “seems forced and mistaken” (p. 79). Heidegger “often ascribes a meaning which seems to me absent in the text itself” (p. 89). Wellek’s low tolerance of any but his own interpretation of Dostoevsky appears repeatedly in this volume: Thomas Mann’s views are called “strange” and “distorted” (p. 12), Freud’s “deeply flawed” (p. 79), Bakhtin’s “simply wrong” (p. 357), and Lukács’s “simply... [those] of Communism” (p. 232). Wellek’s anti-historicism is dramatized in essays on Auerbach and his “historical perspectivism” (p. 132), vs. Spitzer who “always saw that there is a point at which historicism must fail” (p. 144). The vacuum of German criticism during the Nazi period is hauntingly demonstrated. The essays on Walter Benjamin, Bertholt Brecht, and in particular György Lukács reveal best Wellek’s notorious feuds with Marxists. Wellek indulges in a sarcastic critique of the Marxist Lukács’s “doctrinaire limitations” (p. 245) and attempts, wrongfully, to “prove” the Hungarian philosopher’s “exaltation of Socialist Realism” (p. 244). When in the mid-eighties and after much encouragement Wellek finally writes an essay on the early Lukács, he... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950Eva L. CorredorA History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950, by René Wellek; xvii & 458 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, $42.50.The seventh volume of René Wellek’s history of modern criticism may well be the most interesting of his eight-volume monumental oeuvre. Devoted to German, (...) Russian, and Eastern European criticism between 1900 and 1950, it exemplifies most strikingly Wellek’s personal battles with critics who were roughly his contemporaries and closest to his own European background. “I should like to think of my History as ‘elucidatory,’ as not ‘argumentative’ or ‘polemical’” (v, xxi), Wellek writes, but he does not shrink from expressing his own critical perspective usually in a gentlemanly humorous or ironical, but occasionally also quite harsh and stubborn fashion. He insists on the importance of individual value judgments in critical analysis, particularly when they are his own: “I do not believe that... my views and those of my contemporaries will be replaced by completely different assumptions” (“Reflections on my History,” The Attack on Literature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 145).Since Wellek rejects the idea of a historical determinism and thinks that “an evolutionary history of criticism must fail” (The Attack, p. 144), he provides less a history than a collection of essays in which he offers succinct appraisals of writers, thinkers and critics both as individuals and as participants in the broader literary movements of the century. He presents “portraits” (p. xv), which he also calls “doxographies” (The Attack, p. 143), containing a vast amount of quotations carefully selected to support the authority of his own views or to let them speak for themselves when he would rather not comment.More than any previous work, this volume embodies Wellek’s will and determination to carry on against all odds even when he can no longer do so on his own. An accident in 1986 left him bedridden and dependent on students and secretaries to help him with his research and writing. He was able to draw on a wealth of previously published essays, some of which had been written more than three decades ago. There are some arguable inaccuracies and shortcomings (his canon includes obscure writers but not Adorno and [End Page 259] again no women writers), and problems with his bibliographies and references. Yet Wellek’s unique talent to assemble in one volume half a century of critical commentary on the literatures of half a dozen different cultures appears intact. So do his well-known critical positions.Among his most interesting essays are those on Spitzer, Auerbach, Ingarden, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, highly erudite men in whose company Wellek enjoys moving. On the other hand, some extraordinarily fertile minds and their enormous influence on the post-1950 critical discourse are often quickly dismissed or treated with unnecessary condescension. Young Roman Jakobson “should be forgotten” (p. 372). Freud’s psychoanalysis “seems forced and mistaken” (p. 79). Heidegger “often ascribes a meaning which seems to me absent in the text itself” (p. 89). Wellek’s low tolerance of any but his own interpretation of Dostoevsky appears repeatedly in this volume: Thomas Mann’s views are called “strange” and “distorted” (p. 12), Freud’s “deeply flawed” (p. 79), Bakhtin’s “simply wrong” (p. 357), and Lukács’s “simply... [those] of Communism” (p. 232). Wellek’s anti-historicism is dramatized in essays on Auerbach and his “historical perspectivism” (p. 132), vs. Spitzer who “always saw that there is a point at which historicism must fail” (p. 144). The vacuum of German criticism during the Nazi period is hauntingly demonstrated. The essays on Walter Benjamin, Bertholt Brecht, and in particular György Lukács reveal best Wellek’s notorious feuds with Marxists. Wellek indulges in a sarcastic critique of the Marxist Lukács’s “doctrinaire limitations” (p. 245) and attempts, wrongfully, to “prove” the Hungarian philosopher’s “exaltation of Socialist Realism” (p. 244). When in the mid-eighties and after much encouragement Wellek finally writes an essay on the early Lukács, he... (shrink)