The political constitution, and indeed politics generally, are in need of both defending and praising. A principal objective of Martin Loughlin’s ongoing research project exploring the relationship of law to politics is to demonstrate why this is so. In Sword and Scales, Professor Loughlin has provided us with a preliminary, but nonetheless essential, statement on this theme. The structure of Loughlin’s argument in Sword and Scales will be considered in section two of this essay. Sections three and four will then (...) be concerned, respectively, with the issue of whether there is one relationship or many relationships between law and politics, and with the questions of how and why politics should best be defended and praised. Before we come to these considerations, however, we need first to discuss how views about law and politics have recently developed in public law thinking, and especially in theorizing about administrative law, and to assess how such theorizing has evolved into what Loughlin refers to as the ‘liberal legalist’ attack on politics. (shrink)

The literature on Human Enhancement may indeed have reached a critical mass yet theological engagement with the subject is still thin. Human Enhancement has already been established as a key topic within research and captivating visions of the future have been allied with a depth of philosophical analysis. Some Transhumanists have pointed to a theological dimension to their position and some who have warned against enhancement might be seen as having done so from a perspective shaped by a Judeo-Christian worldview. (...) Nonetheless, in neither of these cases has theology been central to engagement with the enhancement quest.Christian theologians who have begun to open up such an engagement with Human Enhancement include Brent Waters, Robert Song and Celia Deane-Drummond. The work they have already carried out is insightful and important yet due to the scale of the possible engagement, the wealth of Christian theology which might be applied to Human Enhancement remains largely untapped. This paper explores how three key aspects of Christian theology, eschatology, love of God and love of neighbour, provide valuable tools for a theological engagement with Human Enhancement. It is proposed that such theological tools need to be applied to Human Enhancement if the debate is to be resourced with the Christian theological perspective of what it means to be human in our contemporary technological context and if society is to have the choice of maintaining its Christian foundations. (shrink)

Whilst the relationship between money and success in elite sport is acknowledged, the exact nature, extent and implications of this relationship is one that has not been carefully examined. In this paper, we have three main aims. Firstly, to provide empirical evidence of the extent that money buys success in the English Premier League. Secondly, to evaluate this evidence from a sports ethics perspective, and finally, to discuss potential solutions to the problem. We argue that the evident performance advantage teams (...) gain through financial investments is contrary to the spirit of sport as it undermines athletic excellence and the ‘sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’ that is central to good competition. Consequently, financial investments in elite football ought to be regulated and controlled. We argue, however, that current attempts to do so are inadequate as they focus on issues concerning financial health, rather than the health of the game in terms of s... (shrink)

Abstract‘Representing Race and Gender’ was the first course in the undergraduate curriculum of the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney to foreground race. This paper provides a critical reflection of our embodied and affective experiences teaching this course as women of different racial and cultural backgrounds (Korean American and Anglo Australian). We draw on feminist pedagogies to illuminate the strategic ways we have performed our own intersectional identities in lecture and tutorial spaces. In particular we (...) focus on the different ways we have approached and taught material on whiteness and white privilege and how students of various backgrounds have responded to the same material when it is taught by a white or non-white lecturer. Through this discussion, we think through how ‘Representing Race and Gender’ functions as a space where pedagogical decisions and approaches are inextricably linked to our goal of developing students’ capacities for engaging with racial difference and racism in critically conscious ways that extend beyond the classroom. (shrink)

A number of EU institutions and government committees across Europe have expressed interest in developing methods and decision-support tools to facilitate consideration of the ethical dimensions of biotechnology assessment. As part of the work conducted in the EC supported project on ethical tools (Ethical Bio-TA Tools), a number of ethical frameworks with the potential to support the work of public policy decision-makers has been characterized and evaluated. One of these potential tools is the Delphi method. The Delphi method was originally (...) developed to assess variables that are intangible and/or shrouded in uncertainty by drawing on the knowledge and abilities of a diverse group of experts through a form of anonymous and iterative consultation. The method has hitherto been used by a diversity of practitioners to explore issues such as technology assessment, environmental planning, and public health measures. From the original (classical) Delphi, a family of Delphi-related processes has emerged. As a result of the evaluation of the various Delphi processes, it is proposed that the classical method can be further developed and applied as a form of ethical framework to assist policy-makers. Through a series of exercises and trials, an Ethical Delphi has been developed as a potential approach for characterizing ethical issues raised by the use of novel biotechnologies. Advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed. Further work is needed to develop the procedural aspects of the Ethical Delphi method and to test its use in different cultural contexts. However, utilizing an ethical framework of this type combines the advantages of a methodical approach to capture ethical aspects with the democratic virtues of transparency and openness to criticism. Ethical frameworks such as the Ethical Delphi should contribute to better understanding of and decision-making on issues that involve decisive ethical dimensions. (shrink)

Objectives—To assess the process involved in obtaining ethical approval for a single-centre study involving geographically dispersed subjects with an uncommon genetic disorder. Design—Observational data of the application process to 53 local research ethics committees (LRECs) throughout Wales, England and Scotland. The Multicentre Research Ethics Committee (MREC) for Wales had already granted approval. Results—Application to the 53 LRECs required 24,552 sheets of paper and took two months of the researcher's time. The median time taken for approval was 39 days with only (...) seven (13%) of committees responding within the recommended 21 days. In at least nineteen cases (36%) a subcommittee considered the application. Thirty-three committees (62%) accepted the proposal without amendments but, of the remainder, four (8%) requested changes outside of the remit of LRECs. Discussion—Difficulties still exist with the system for obtaining ethical approval for studies involving a single centre but with patients at multiple sites, as is often required for genetic observational research. As such studies differ from true multicentre studies, it may be advantageous to develop a separate and specific process of application to ensure that resources are not unnecessarily expended in the quest for ethical approval. (shrink)

Although many scientists view cloning as a useful procedure for scientific research into early embryo development—one that cannot currently be used to produce multiple copies of humans—the popular literature has led some individuals to view it as sinister. To address the concerns of the public, various conceptions of cloning are distinguished and their basis in fact analyzed. The possible uses, benefits, and detriments of both embryo splitting and nuclear transplantation are explained. Once the nature and purposes of cloning are understood, (...) and the distinctive ethical dilemmas created by embryo splitting and nuclear transplantation are sorted out, these procedures should be clinically implemented to assist in vitro fertilization treatment for those who are infertile and to further other therapeutic and investigational efforts in medicine. (shrink)

Improvements in production methods over the last two decades have resulted in aquaculture becoming a significant contributor to food production in many countries. Increased efficiency and production levels are off-setting unsustainable capture fishing practices and contributing to food security, particularly in a number of developing countries. The challenge for the rapidly growing aquaculture industry is to develop and apply technologies that ensure sustainable production methods that will reduce environmental damage, increase productivity across the sector, and respect the diverse social and (...) cultural dimensions of fish farming that are observed globally. The aquaculture industry currently faces a number of technology trajectories, which include the option to commercially produce genetically modified (GM) fish. The use of genetic modification in aquaculture has the potential to contribute to increased food security and is claimed to be the next logical step for the industry. However, the potential use of these technologies raises a number of important ethical questions. Using an ethical framework, the Ethical Matrix, this paper explores a number of the ethical issues potentially raised by the use of GM technologies in aquaculture. Several key issues have been identified. These include aspects of distributive justice for producers; use of a precautionary approach in the management of environmental risk and food safety; and impacts on the welfare and intrinsic value of the fish. There is a need to conduct a comparative analysis of the full economic cycle of the use of GM fish in aquaculture production for developing countries. There is also a need to initiate an informed dialogue between stakeholders and strenuous efforts should be made to ensure the participation of producers and their representatives from developing nations. An additional concern is that any national licensing of the first generation of GM fish, i.e., in the USA, may initiate and frame an assessment cycle, mediated by the WTO, which could dominate the conditions under which the technology will be applied and regulated globally. Therefore, an integrated analysis of the technology development trajectories, in terms of international policy, IPR, and operational implications, as well as an analysis of a broader range of ethical concerns, is needed. (shrink)

The Ethical Matrix was developed to help decision-makers explore the ethical issues raised by agri-food biotechnologies. Over the decade since its inception the Ethical Matrix has been used by a number of organizations and the philosophical basis of the framework has been discussed and analyzed extensively. The role of tools such as the Ethical Matrix in public policy decision-making has received increasing attention. In order to further develop the methodological aspects of the Ethical Matrix method, work was carried out to (...) study the potential role of the Ethical Matrix as a decision support framework. When considering which frameworks to apply when analyzing the ethical dimensions of the application of agri-food biotechnologies, it is important to clarify the substantive nature of any prospective framework. In order to further investigate this issue, reflections on the neologism “ethical soundness” of an ethical framework are presented here. This concept is introduced in order to provide more structured evaluations of a range of ethical tools, including ethical frameworks such as the Ethical Matrix. As well as examining the philosophical dimensions of the method, theoretical analysis and literature studies were combined with stakeholder engagement exercises and consultations in order to review the Ethical Matrix from a user perspective. This work resulted in the development of an Ethical Matrix Manual, which is intended to act as a guide for potential user groups. (shrink)

According to Silvan Tomkins polarity theory, ideological thought is universally structured by a clash between two opposing worldviews. On the left, a humanistic worldview seeks to uphold the intrinsic value of the person; on the right, a normative worldview holds that human worth is contingent upon conformity to rules. In this article, we situate humanism and normativism within the context of contemporary models of political ideology as a function of motivated social cognition, beliefs about the social world, and personality (...) traits. In four studies conducted in the U.S. and Sweden, normativism was robustly associated with rightist self-placement; conservative issue preferences; resistance to change and acceptance of inequality; right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation; system justification and its underlying epistemic and existential motives to reduce uncertainty and threat; and a lack of openness, emotionality, and honesty-humility. Humanism exhibited the opposite relations to most of these constructs, but it was largely unrelated to epistemic and existential needs. Humanism was strongly associated with preferences for equality, openness to change, and low levels of authoritarianism, social dominance, and general and economic system justification. We conclude that polarity theory possesses considerable potential to explain how conflicts between worldviews shape contemporary politics. (shrink)

In his ‘script theory,' Tomkins first proposed that people unconsciously organize their life experiences in terms of narrative structures he termed “scripts.” I use a clinical vignette to illustrate how the psychotherapeutic process of “making the unconscious conscious” involves becoming aware of the maladaptive scripts that people unwittingly live by, and developing them into the “conviction narratives” proposed by the authors.

The New World of the Organic CodesThe genetic code appeared on Earth at the origin of life, and the codes of culture arrived almost 4 billion years later, at the end of life’s history. Today it is widely assumed that these are the only codes that exist in Nature, and if this were true we would have to conclude that codes are extraordinary exceptions because they appeared only at the beginning and at the end of evolution. In reality, various other (...) organic codes have been discovered in the past few decades.In 1975, the American biochemist Gordon Tomkins published a paper entitled The Metabolic Code. Biological symbolism and the origin of intercellular communication . That was the very first announcement of a new organic code after the discovery of the genetic code, but tragically Tomkins died that very year and his new world of organic symbolism remained unexplored. Some 10 years later, Edward Trifonov started a life-long campaign in favour .. (shrink)

Dance/movement as active imagination was originated by Jung in 1916. Developed in the 1960s by dance therapy pioneer Mary Whitehouse, it is today both an approach to dance therapy as well as a form of active imagination in analysis. In her delightful book Joan Chodorow provides an introduction to the origins, theory and practice of dance/movement as active imagination. Beginning with her own story the author shows how dance/ movement is of value to psychotherapy. An historical overview of Jung's basic (...) concepts is given as well as the most recent depth psychological synthesis of affect theory based on the work of Sylvan Tomkins, Louis Stewart, and others. Finally in discussing the use of dance/movement as active imagination in practice, the movement themes that emerge and the non-verbal expressive aspects of the therapaeutic relationship are described. (shrink)

The strong continuity thesis postulates that the properties of mind are an enriched version of the properties of life, and thus that life and mind differ in degree and not kind. A philosophical problem for this view is the ostensive discontinuity between humans and other animals in virtue of our use of symbols—particularly the presumption that the symbolic nature of human cognition bears no relation to the basic properties of life. In this paper, we make the case that a genuine (...) account of strong continuity requires the identification of some sort of correlate of symbol-use in basic life properties. Our strategy is three-fold: 1) we argue that examples of proto-symbolism in simple living systems would be consistent with an evolutionary trajectory that ultimately produced symbolic cognition in humans; 2) we introduce Gordon Tomkins’ biological notion of ‘symbol’ as something that represents to the organism a feature of its environment that is significant to its survival; and 3) we employ this biological understanding of symbol-use to suggest that the symbolic nature of human cognition can be understood as an enriched version of the basic symbolic properties of life, thus preserving life-mind continuity in this context. (shrink)

:Recent attempts to engage and develop modes of ethological practice that avoid deterministic and mechanistic accounts of animal action have often relied on affect as a way of articulating how animal bodies affect and are in turn affected by the animate and inanimate bodies around them. In this context affect has often functioned as an instigating site of change that opens up the experience of a particular animal to new possibilities for action and relation. This paper seeks to bring the (...) significant role that affect has played in opening up new directions in ethological theory and practice in contact with a discussion of two currents in affect theory – one shaped by the genealogy of philosophical thought that stretches from Spinoza, through Gilles Deleuze, to contemporary thinkers such as Brian Massumi, and the other emerging from the reception of the American psychologist and cybernetics thinker Silvan Tomkins, in the context of queer theory, through the work of Eve Sedgwick and Adam Frank. The locus of intersection for these different modes of theoretical practice is the site-specific case study of monk parakeets who have drawn on and incorporated the ornamental elaborations of human architecture into their own complex architectural nest constructions at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. (shrink)

Re-evaluating dominant cultural narratives around dying and death is central to new critiques of individualism and human exceptionalism. As conceptual tools for theorizing the end of the individual proliferate, the affective dimensions of this project are often overlooked, especially as they pertain to individual subjects. In contrast, a significant number of iconic queer and feminist thinkers have suffered breast cancer and written memoirs representing the subjective experience of confronting mortality. This article identifies the affective orientations towards one’s own mortality as (...) missing from queer and feminist thinking on embodiment in the Anthropocene. As a remedy, the article reads several iconic feminist breast cancer memoirs – Sontag, Lorde, Sedgwick, Jain and Boyer – for their complex representations of affect, in particular fear, in relation to dying and death. Using the affect theory of Silvan Tomkins, this analysis contributes to critiques of cancer culture in medical humanities and of mortality and embodiment in feminist environmental humanities. (shrink)

Ruth Leys raises a number of important questions about the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of the affect theories that have emerged in the critical humanities, sciences, and social sciences in the last decade. There are a variety of frameworks for thinking about what constitutes the affective realm , and there are different preferences for how such frameworks could be deployed. We would like to engage with just one part of that debate: the contributions of Silvan Tomkins's affect theory. We (...) take issue with Leys's formulation that Tomkins's work along with that of Brian Massumi, William Connolly, and Paul Ekman form a group of like-minded theorists. We do not believe this represents an accurate account of the conceptual and empirical commitments of these various authors. By bundling their work together, Leys misses much of what is compellingly critical in each of these writers, and she overlooks what is most invigorating in the debates amongst them. In addition, the specificities of Tomkins's work have been badly served in Leys's essay. In four volumes stretching from 1962 to 1992 Tomkins laid out a complex and captivating theory of the human affect system, in which mechanisms of neurological feedback, social scripts, and facial behavior coassemble as affective events. Our response to Leys's essay is motivated by a wish to see more detailed engagements with this theory—the distinctiveness of which we believe has yet to be fully explored in this new affective turn. (shrink)

The question—what is a political constitution?—might seem, at first blush, fairly innocuous. At one level, the idea of a political constitution seems fairly well settled, at least insofar as most political constitutionalists subscribe to a similar set of commitments, arguments and assumptions. At a second, more reflective level, however, there remains some doubt whether a political constitution purports to be a descriptive or normative account of a real world constitution, such as Britain’s. By exploring the idea of a political constitution (...) as differently articulated by J.A.G. Griffith, Adam Tomkins and Richard Bellamy, this essay explores why the normativity of a political constitution may be indistinct and ill-defined, and how compelling reasons for this indistinctness and ill-definition are to be found in the very idea of a political constitution itself. A political constitution is here conceived as a ‘model’ which supplies an explanatory framework within which to make sense of our constitutional self-understandings. The discipline of thinking in terms of a model opens up a critical space wherein there need not be some stark, all-encompassing choice between constitutional models, which, in turn, allows for more subtle understandings of Britain’s constitution as neither exclusively ‘political’ nor ‘legal’. (shrink)

This article reintroduces notions of the experiential, lived body as crucial for teaching. It critiques some recent moves within women’s studies, and cultural studies more generally, to use ‘theory’ as a way of abstracting bodies from the classroom. Using the work of Silvan Tomkins on affects, and Deleuzian notions of the body, it argues for a more comprehensive account of the affects, politics and practices of pedagogy.

This article reintroduces notions of the experiential, lived body as crucial for teaching. It critiques some recent moves within women’s studies, and cultural studies more generally, to use ‘theory’ as a way of abstracting bodies from the classroom. Using the work of Silvan Tomkins on affects, and Deleuzian notions of the body, it argues for a more comprehensive account of the affects, politics and practices of pedagogy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Towards a Design-Based Analysis of Emotional Episodes”Margaret A. Boden (bio)The theoretical work of Wright, Sloman, and Beaudoin is a significant contribution to our understanding of the nature and function of emotions, and potentially also to therapeutic method. Their message that emotions, as controlling and scheduling mechanisms, are essential to any complex intelligent system (that is: one with multiple and potentially conflicting motives, and situated in a changing (...) and unfriendly world) is important. It encourages cognitive psychologists to regard emotions as a central aspect of intelligence, not to sideline (or even to forget) them, as is too often done. In addition, it shows—at least in general outline—how emotions might be understood in computational terms.Critics of computational psychology too often assume that emotions and motivation must lie outside its scope. This is not so, although it is true that relatively little computational work has been done in this area. Interestingly, the very early days of AI saw a comparatively high proportion of models of multiple goal-seeking, affective processes, and even personality (see, for example, the papers in Tomkins and Messick 1963). But, inevitably, these were so crude as to be almost useless in illuminating the nature of emotion and motivation. As AI-workers and their psychologist colleagues found to their cost, it is difficult enough to model the pursuit of one goal, never mind the pursuit of several mutually conflicting goals. Accordingly, personality and emotion soon faded from the scene as preferred topics of computational research—but not before I too had argued that they could, in principle, be so addressed (Boden 1965; 1972).I suggested—in the sketchiest terms—that the concepts of William McDougall’s personality theory could be interpreted in a computational fashion (Boden 1965; 1972). His concept of sentiment, for example, marks what Wright et al. call “goal-sets,” and his master sentiment of self-regard relates to the descriptive and normative aspects of the self-image to which they draw our attention. He even described emotions as (conscious) control mechanisms, enabling the subject to monitor the incipient excitement of distinct types of motivation, and (sometimes) to adjust behavior so as to facilitate or inhibit the otherwise-inevitable response. What the target-authors have done is to put subtle and sophisticated computational flesh onto these minimalist theoretical bones.McDougall himself, of course, will be turning in his grave. He saw affect as partly conscious (as well as dispositional), and argued that consciousness—and purposive behavior too—cannot possibly [End Page 135] be given a mechanistic, or physicalist, explanation. Despite Wright et al.’s persuasive anti-reductionist remarks about the necessity for highly abstract (psychological) levels of explanation, he would not have accepted that such explanations could be computationally grounded. He even insisted that the neurophysiological ground of goal-seeking behavior involved a special sort of energy, or horme, intrinsically directed to specific ends. Presumably, no professional reader today would agree with McDougall on that point. But many may agree with him about consciousness. And many more will insist that consciousness is a crucial aspect—perhaps the crucial aspect—of emotion. Such critics will doubtless point out that our three authors explicitly “factor out,” or refuse to discuss, consciousness as such.Wright et al.’s rhetorical reserve on this point is defensible on two counts. First, even though emotions do involve conscious sensations, the dispositional and control aspects of affect are at least as important. Indeed, it is evident from the quotations from individuals reacting to bereavement that people often describe the phenomenology of grief in terms of these sorts of factors, rather than in a “purely qualitative” fashion (whatever that might be). Even so, these dispositional aspects of emotion are often overlooked, or regarded as less significant than the conscious phenomenology. And second, theoretical psychologists in general sideline consciousness: either they ignore it entirely, or they take it for granted philosophically and ask about the conditions under which it appears or disappears. They are well advised to do so, since we do not yet understand this concept (more accurately: this mixed bag of related concepts) at the philosophical level. Even a journal whose title has “Philosophy” as its leading... (shrink)

Affect Theory, Genre, and the Example of Tragedy employs Silvan Tomkins' Affect-Script theory of human psychology to explore the largely unacknowledged emotions of disgust and shame in tragedy. The book begins with an overview of Tomkins' relationship to both traditional psychoanalysis and theories of human motivation and emotion, before considering tragedy via case studies of Oedipus, Hamlet, and Death of a Salesman. Aligning Affect-Script theory with literary genre studies, this text explores what motivates fictional characters within the closed (...) conditions of their imagined worlds and how we as an audience relate to and understand fictional characters as motivated humans. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between the poetic language of Donne, Herbert, Milton, and other British poets, and the choral music and part-songs of composers including Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes, and Tomkins. The seventeenth century was the time in English literary history when music was most consciously linked to words, and when the mingling of Renaissance and 'new' philosophy opened new discovery routes for the interpretation of art. McColley offers close readings of poems and the musical settings of analogous (...) texts, and discusses the philosophy, performance, and disputed political and ecclesiastical implications of polyphony. She also enters into current discourse about the nature of language, relating poets' use of language and composers' use of music to larger questions concerning the arts, politics and theology. (shrink)

Despite globalization and the rapid development of information technology, cross-cultural dialogue did not become any easier. The physical and non-physical confrontations are intensified by the differences in basic values and interest of cultures, which can be seen by the increasing number of wars, extreme localism, and mistrust between people. Rationality, which has long been regarded as the best and the only common language among different cultures, fails to facilitate communication and collaboration. Rationality’s limitation was revealed among others in Alasdair MacIntyre’s (...) Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Unlike what ancient Greek philosophers suggested, there is not a single type of supreme rationality that everyone will and should follow. The only consensus perhaps is about the instrumental rationality suggested by Max Weber, which is futile in promoting cross-cultural dialogues as it addresses the various means rather than the ends of different cultures. In this paper, I argue that emotion is a better language for universal dialogue than rationality in two senses. First, the psychologists and anthropologists provide solid evidence to prove that certain emotions are basic and universal among all human beings. For instance, based on his study of facial expression of the Fore people in Papua New Guinea, Ekman proposed that anger, fear, surprise, disgust, sadness, and happiness are six basic emotions that are universally shared. Other evidence includes studies conducted by Tomkins, Arnold, and Frijda. These basic emotions might serve as the foundation of cross-cultural dialogue because we are evolved to understand the causes and expressions of these emotions in others despite the cultural and social differences. Second, unlike instrumental rationality that focuses solely on how to achieve one’s end, certain emotions are non-egocentric by nature. For instance, compassion is “another-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of another person”. Chinese philosophy expresses a similar idea with the aid of the concept of Ren, which is the essence of human being, according to Confucianism. Love is another non-egocentric emotion that is constituted by care and concern of the well-being of one’s beloved for his or her own sake. That is, I love you not because loving you makes me happy, instead, it is because loving you makes you happy. Such non-egocentric emotions might encourage and motivate crosscultural dialogue despite the conflict of interest between cultures. While facing multifaceted contemporary problems and crisis, we do not lack rational and intelligent solutions. We lack mutual understanding, reciprocal tolerance, and sustainable collaboration. The role of emotion in establishing a platform of cross-cultural dialogue should not be overlooked. (shrink)

Male-to-female transvestism is a complex phenomenon that is often confused with other manifestations of male-to-female cross-dressing, e.g. drag performance. As a practice, male-to-female transvestism remains under-theorised in feminist and queer literature. In this article I approach male-to-female transvestism from two different directions. First, I sketch out some of the meta-theoretical issues surrounding its place in feminist and queer scholarship. Second, I hone in on particular details of male-to-female transvestite culture in order to model the kind of attentive reading that male-to-female (...) transvestism requires. The first section of the article presents readings of three foundational texts – Gayle Rubin’s ‘Thinking Sex’ (1984), Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) and Marjorie Garber’s Vested Interests (1992) – to highlight the challenges facing the theorisation of male-to-female transvestism in feminist and queer scholarly traditions. In the second section, I turn to an online message board for male-to-female cross-dressers (crossdressers.com) and read practices of passing and photography through a theoretical framework informed by Alan Turing, Masahiro Mori and Silvan Tomkins. (shrink)

Americans have been obsessed about the mechanics of perfectibility. Perfectibility is built into the constitutive documents of the American Republic. The expression of that perfection is Law, and Government provides the means. The mechanics of perfectibility lies in philosophy and theology. Through these mechanics Americans can discern the spirit of perfection - as God or as the genius of the American community made manifest. The essay considers these notions in the context of two cases, Swift v. Tyson (1842) and Erie (...) Railroad Co. v. Tomkins (1938), which provide both the antipodes of American conceptions of the sources and hierarchy of law, and also suggest the mechanics of a mandatory perfectibility in American. But the judge is not the only intermediary between perfection and its expression in law. The essay suggests the way the political branches also seek the role of privileged (and uniquely privileged) intermediaries between the people and perfection. The essay ends with a consideration of the value of the theology of faith and reason in the elaboration of American jurisprudence. (shrink)

ArgumentThis essay offers a reading of Gertrude Stein's lecture “Plays” (1934) alongside the work of several thinkers on emotion, William James, Silvan Tomkins, and Wilfred Bion. The problem of what Stein calls “emotional syncopation” at the theater is understood in the context of James’ theory of emotion. The essay proceeds to unfold Stein's emphasis on varieties of excitement by way of Silvan Tomkins’ writing. It then turns to Wilfred Bion's theory of thinking to argue that the main problem (...) with theater, for Stein, is the difficulty it poses to learning or arriving at genuinely new knowledge. The essay concludes with the suggestion that Stein's plays address the further difficulties of analyzing group dynamics or numbers of individuals, especially in the context of modernist mass media. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Future Directions for Human Cloning by Embryo Splitting:After the HullabalooCynthia B. Cohen (bio)In October 1993, a paper entitled, "Experimental Cloning of Human Polyploid Embryos Using an Artificial Zona Pellucida," was presented at a joint meeting of the American Fertility Society and the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. Although it was awarded a prize, its authors, who are affiliated with George Washington University, decided against calling a press conference to (...) announce their findings. Word of their experiment soon leaked out, however, and the New York Times blazoned on its front page that human embryo cloning had been achieved. The story was accompanied by a diagram of cloning by nuclear transplantation.Newspapers and television networks around the world picked up the story and embellished it. The idea of unlimited, xeroxed copies of human beings gripped the public imagination. Wild scenarios of hundreds of Hitlers plotting to take over the world and of clones giving birth to their own twins enlivened media reports. Only gradually did it become clear that the term "polyploid" in the title of the paper referred to abnormal embryos that could never develop into living human beings and that "cloning" referred to embryo splitting or twinning, not to nuclear transplantation or the transfer of a donor nucleus into an enucleated egg. Once this sank into public consciousness, the "hullabaloo," as Dr. Howard W Jones, Jr., called it, died down.It left in its wake unanswered questions about the ethics of splitting embryos. During the height of the publicity given to the George Washington experiment, newspaper and TV stories had not delved in any depth into the ethical issues it raised. Ethicists, given limited time to discuss the ethical questions at stake, had been quoted in quick, simplistic responses. Some had offered little analysis of the rights and wrongs of embryo splitting, but, revealing tremendous creative talent, had spun out [End Page 187] imaginary and frightening applications of the procedure. This was a story essentially about ethics in which ethics was never really discussed.The National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction* (NABER), an independent, multidisciplinary group that addresses ethical issues in modern reproductive science, technology, and care, became concerned about the sparsity of reflective ethical debate about embryo splitting. NABER's chair, Albert Jonsen, observed that "reporters phoning ethicists for comment and ethicists appearing on talk shows do not a debate make. Debate requires face to face (or at least essay to essay) argument among persons sharing the same information. This has yet to take place." Consequently, NABER decided to convene a workshop on human cloning by embryo splitting at the National Academy of Sciences in February 1994. The board invited participants who would provide a broad range of opinion about the ethical and public policy issues entailed by human embryo splitting. Embryologists, ethicists, reproductive biologists, public policy experts, staff from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), legal scholars, journalists, and infertility specialists were among those who participated. The feature articles in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal derive from that workshop. Their authors were given free rein to take whatever stance they deemed ethically supportable.The first article is designed to provide some understanding of the science of human cloning as a basis for exploring the ethical issues raised by this set of techniques. Jacques Cohen, a leading reproductive embryologist, and Giles Tomkin, a science writer, both of Cornell University Medical School, explain, in a way that is clear to laypersons and biologists alike, the meaning, nature, and function of cloning. They discuss recent: advances in this area and offer an assessment of feasible uses of human cloning procedures, hoping to dispel what they view as mistaken fears about its future applications. Dr. Howard W Jones, Jr., a pioneer infertility specialist, briefly comments on Cohen and Tomkin's paper, pointing out that embryo splitting may not improve pregnancy results if genetic heterogeneity is required for successful embryo transfer and implantation.In the next article, three major ethical arguments against human cloning by embryo splitting are analyzed and rejected by Ruth Macklin, an expert in reproductive ethics from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She finds the first argument, that the worth of individuals... (shrink)

This book provides an important addition to the debate about the nature and normative basis for the United Kingdom's constitutional ordering. It combines a strong argument against moves to adopt forms of "legal constitutionalism" with a defence of the country's existing "political constitution", one sourced in the ideals of republican government. This critical review explores the structure of Tomkins' claims, and raises three questions about how they might apply to certain aspects of the United Kingdom's constitutional order: the place (...) of a republican United Kingdom in an increasingly integrated Europe; the place of the courts in a republican constitutional order; and the role of political parties in a republican parliament. (shrink)

_The Widening Scope of Shame_ is the first collection of papers on shame to appear in a decade and contains contributions from most of the major authors currently writing on this topic. It is not a sourcebook, but a comprehensive introduction to clinical and theoretical perspectives on shame that is intended to be read cover to cover. The panoramic scope of this multidisciplinary volume is evidenced by a variety of clinically and developmentally grounded chapters; by chapters explicating the theories of (...) Silvan Tomkins and Helen Block Lewis; and by chapters examining shame from the viewpoints of philosophy, social theory, and the study of family systems. A final section of brief chapters illuminates shame in relation to specific clinical problems and experiential contexts, including envy, attention deficit disorder, infertility, masochism, the medical setting, and religious experience. This collection will be of special interest to psychoanalytically oriented readers. It begins with a chapter charting the evolution of Freud's thinking on shame, followed by chapters providing contemporary perspectives on the role of shame in development, and the status of shame within the theory of narcissism. Of further psychoanalytic interest are two reprinted classics by Sidney Levin on shame and marital dysfunction. In both depth of clinical coverage and breadth of perspectives, _The Widening Scope of Shame_ is unique in the shame literature. Readable, well organized, and completely up to date, it becomes essential reading for all students of this intriguing and unsettling emotion and of human development more generally. (shrink)

The “affective turn” is by now long established, part of a wider surge of interest in emotion playing out in a range of disciplines. In literary studies, the conversation about how affect theory might help us to interpret literature is still emerging. The goal of the present discussion is to provide a critical overview of work by scholars who draw on the insights of recent theory to read literary texts written in English. At the same time that the discussion offers (...) an appraisal of the current state of scholarship, it also seeks to identify emerging new directions in research. (shrink)