Working with Jorge Luis Borges’s The Book of Imaginary Beings, this essay shows how creaturely beings, or transfigurations, dramatize the afterlife of racial slavery, coloniality, the temporality of HIV/AIDS, and how their im/possibility disturbs and breaks with the “order of things.” While transitive and transversal in their potentiality for insurgency, Imaginary Beings and Fantastic Zoology also always carry a colonial logic, a conquest paradigm, while also un-resting the enjoyment of, what Borges calls, “terrible grounds.” Taking up fantastical and imaginary figures, (...) this essay aims to add to Borges’s compendium of beings; this is a tracing of fugitive forces, of pessimistic and potent provocations that break from “the Human,” “the Man,” and their enumerable agents – from the Fanonian invocation of the bestiary, to the +* value form and its racialized and erotico-, bio-, and necropolitical calculus of HIV/AIDS risk, the authors explore transfigurations at the edge of existence. (shrink)

Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the contributors to this volume come together from a diverse range of backgrounds to analyze, critique, and envision alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. They engage with the hyper-incarceration of people of color, the incomplete abolition of slavery, the exploitation of prisoners (...) as workers and as "raw material" for the prison industrial complex, the intensive confinement of prisoners in supermax units, and the complexities of capital punishment in an age of abolition. -/- Contents -/- Introduction: Death and Other Penalties Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman -/- Part I. Legacies of Slavery -/- Excavating the Sedimentations of Slavery: The Unfinished Project of American Abolition Brady Heiner -/- From Commodity Fetishism to Prison Fetishism: Slavery, Convict-leasing, and the Ideological Productions of Incarceration James Manos -/- Maroon Philosophy: An Interview with Russell Maroon Shoatz Russell Maroon Shoatz -/- Part II. Death Penalties -/- In Reality-from the Row Derrick Quintero -/- Inheritances of the Death Penalty: American Racism and Derrida's Theologico-Political Sovereignty Geoffrey Adelsberg -/- Making Death a Penalty: Or, Making "Good" Death a "Good" Penalty Kelly Oliver -/- Death Penalty Abolition in Neoliberal Times: The SAFE California Act and the Nexus of Savings and Security Andrew Dilts -/- On the Inviolability of Human Life Julia Kristeva (translated by Lisa Walsh) -/- Part III. Rethinking Power and Responsibility -/- Punishment, Desert, and Equality: A Levinasian Analysis Benjamin S. Yost -/- Prisons and Palliative Politics Ami Harbin -/- Sovereignty, Community, and the Incarceration of Immigrants Matt S. Whitt -/- Without the Right to Exist: Mass Incarceration and National Security Andrea Smith -/- Prison Abolition and a Culture of Sexual Difference Sarah Tyson -/- Part IV. Isolation and Resistance -/- Statement on Solitary Confinement Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman -/- The Violence of the Supermax: Toward a Phenomenological Aesthetics of Prison Space Adrian Switzer -/- Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry Shokoufeh Sakhi -/- Critical Theory, Queer Resistance, and the Ends of Capture Liat Ben-Moshe, Che Gossett, Nick Mitchell, and Eric A. Stanley. (shrink)

The existence of extensive written communications between Verdi and his librettists should have prompted scholars to prepare editions of the correspondence and to analyze its meaning and implications. Only rarely can we participate directly in the formative stages of an opera, and available material such as the correspondence between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal is invaluable.1 Obeisance, at least, has been done to Verdi's correspondence. Alessandro Luzio calls the letters of Verdi to Antonio Ghislanzoni, "versifier" of Aida , "the (...) most marvelous course in musical aesthetics in action." Yet, for no opera do we have available a complete editions of the surviving letters between Verdi and a librettist. · 1. Willi Schuh, ed., Richard Strauss - Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Briedwechsel, 4th ed. . An English edition, made from an earlier German edition with many omissions, was published as A Working Friendship: The Correspondence between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, trans. Hans Hammelmann and Ewald Osers . Philip Gossett is the general editor of the critical edition of the works of Rossini and author of numerous articles on Renaissance music, Italian opera, Beethoven, and musical theory. (shrink)

This article—part of a Common Knowledge symposium titled “Between Text and Performance”—argues that the publication of a new edition of Il barbiere di Siviglia in Works of Gioachino Rossini (Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel) offers an excellent opportunity to reflect upon the written text of an opera and its relationship to the work that performers must do to realize the opera in the theater. Rossini wrote many passages that demand the intervention of performers (performing them “as written” is simply an error), yet this (...) does not mean necessarily that “anything goes.” The new edition not only gives Rossini's own variations for the opera, but also (in an appendix prepared by Will Crutchfield) indicates the nature of ornamentation and variations employed by singers before 1850. Many of the variations still heard today in the opera house reflect practices from the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is no moral obligation to avoid such practices, but one wants singers to be fully aware of what they are doing. This essay provides extensive examples of the kind of autograph notation that signals the obligatory intervention of performers and offers many examples from performers who were contemporaries of Rossini as to how they went about their task of representing the composer's work on stage. (shrink)

This essay introduces a Common Knowledge symposium on the relationship between texts (for instance, musical scores or dramatic scripts) and performance in the arts by drawing out its implications for the interpretation of publicly consequential texts (such as constitutions, legal statutes, and canon law). Arguing that judges and clerics could learn much from studying the work of Philip Gossett and other practitioners of textual criticism in the arts, the essay suggests that a wider array of choices exists for legal (...) interpretation than the usual alternative between originalism or literalism, on the one hand, and intuitionism, on the other hand. Contributions to the symposium (titled “Between Text and Performance”) emphasize what Roger Moseley calls “improvisatory fluency in historical idioms,” and this introduction recommends that jurists develop for the law the kind of “ear” that musicians must have when a score invites or demands improvisation. (shrink)

Research on pornography has distinguished between its violent and nonviolent forms. Analyses of the content of violent pornography have largely focused on readily available soft-core images in adult films and magazines. However, current research has not adequately addressed pornography on the Internet. We show that discussions about violent pornography are incomplete without an understanding of the Internet as a unique and rapidly expanding medium for disseminating images of sexual violence against women. This article attempts to fill that gap by examining (...) violent pornography using a sample of 31 free Internet sites. Each site was analyzed for its portrayal of women victims, male perpetrators, and its story of rape. Please be advised that the analysis contains graphic descriptions of violence toward women found on Internet rape sites. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to make a comparative study of Chang Yi-mou’s films and the novels of a Taiwanese regionalist novelist— Wang Chen-ho, for both of the two artists reveal great impulse of postcolonialist view in representing history and gender/class, though with different emphasis. Chang. is now one of the most successful movie directors in the Asia-Pacific region, just like Ang Lee, and enjoys high prestige and international fame—a great example of “globalization” and “multiculturalism,” whereas Wang has always been (...) recognized as one of the most successful Taiwanese nativist novelists because of his experimental representation of the hybridized Taiwanese languages by skillfully blending “Chinglish,” Japanese, and other Taiwanese dialects within his story-telling. In other words, in this paper, I intend to make a comparative study of the micropolitics of how Chang’s and Wang ’s works reveal a postcolonial discourse/condition in representing history/gender/class. Critical approaches that will be employed in this project are mainly the micropolitics in the postcolonialist poetics of Homi Bhabha, Said, and Deleuze and Guattari. (shrink)

From a perspective of multiculturalism, this paper aims to analyze Ang Lee’s Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain by elaborating on the issues of sex/gender/identity in the hope of exploring the process and problematics of cultural formations in the era of globalization characterized by multiculturalism. Based on Judith Buthler’s deconstructive/postmodernist view of sex/gender/identity, the first part of this essay evaluates simultaneously both the positive and negative aspects of these two films; whereas Deleuze’s literary aesthetics of minor literature offers me a subtle (...) perspective on Ang Lee’s extraordinary achievement in creating a minoritarian artistic work that exposes the complexity of human psyche/desire, which constitutes the second part of this essay. In addition, both parts intend to reexamine, from a perspective of multiculturalism, how Ang Lee’s special micropolitics/aesthetics enables him to rewrite successfully Annie Proulx’s short story for the screen so as to create a globally popular American love story that not only distinguishes him from the mediocre Hollywood commercial romance film makers but also simultaneously brings him fame and profit. (shrink)

Qu'y a-t-il de commun entre les musiques de tous les temps et de toutes les cultures? Peut-on repérer des formes sonores identiques? Existe-t-il des principes d'organisation similaires?François-Bernard M‚che reprend ici la question des universaux en musique et montre en quoi le jeu musical est un jeu poétique et naturel, qui s'esquisse déjà dans le monde animal. On comprend mieux dés lors que l'homme puisse éprouver des émotions aussi intenses à l'écoute et au maniement des sons. On comprend mieux, aussi, que (...) la musique puisse être une sorte de lieu-test pour la distinction entre nature et culture. Compositeur et musicologue de réputation internationale, professeur à l'EHESS, François-Bernard M‚che a reçu le Grand Prix national de la Musique pour l'ensemble de son œuvre. (shrink)

The problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fundamental problem of Marxism. Throughout the socialist historical phase, whether or not we can from beginning to end uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat is a matter of the greatest importance for the future development of China. The emphasis of our great teacher and leader Chairman Mao on clarification of the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the purpose of combating and preventing revisionism, strengthening the dictatorship of the (...) proletariat, and preventing and stopping any capitalist restoration is invested with increasingly important practical significance and a profound historical significance. (shrink)

Viewed from some postcolonial/postmodern perspectives by employing mostly the micropolitics of Homi Bhabha’s and Gilles Deleuze (and other theorists who hold similar conceptions), whose major common interest lies in dismantling the myth of establishing an imagined community by retrieving a shared national history/culture and assuming ethnic purity, this paper seeks to explore the paradoxical aspects of Taiwan’s quest in her decolonizing progress for a “collective” national/cultural identity. Besides, this paper compares mostly Taiwan’s decolonization process with South Korea’s because of their (...) similarity in territorial division due to some civil wars and the intervention of external powers (e.g., the former Soviet Union and U.S.A.). By so doing, this paper aims to propose some solution to Taiwanese’s dilemma in constructing a “collective” national /cultural identity. (shrink)

Controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) studies involve the deliberate infection of healthy volunteers with malaria parasites under controlled conditions to study immune responses and/or test drug or vaccine efficacy. An empirical ethics study was embedded in a CHMI study at a Kenyan research programme to explore stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences of deliberate infection and moral implications of these. Data for this qualitative study were collected through focus group discussions, in‐depth interviews and non‐participant observation. Sixty‐nine participants were involved, including CHMI study (...) volunteers, community representatives and research staff. Data were managed using QSR Nvivo 10 and analysed using an inductive‐deductive approach, guided by ethics literature. CHMI volunteers had reasonable understanding of the study procedures. Decisions to join were influenced by study incentives, trust in the research institution, their assessment of associated burdens and motivation to support malaria vaccine development. However, deliberate malaria infection was a highly unusual research strategy for volunteers, community representatives and some study staff. Volunteers’ experiences of physical, emotional and social burdens or harms were often greater than anticipated initially, and fluctuated over time, related to specific procedures and events. Although unlikely to deter volunteers' participation in similar studies in furture, we argue that the dissonance between level of understanding of the burdens involved and actual experiences are morally relevant in relation to community engagement, informed consent processes, and ongoing support for volunteers and research staff. We further argue that ethics oversight of CHMI studies should take account of these issues in deciding whether consent, engagement and the balance of benefits and harms are reasonable in a given context. (shrink)

Abstract.Agricultural restructuring has disproportionately impacted smaller US farms, such as those in Michigan where the average farm size is 215 acres. To keep agricultural land in production, entrepreneurial Michigan farmers are utilizing agritourism as a value-added way to capitalize on their comparative advantages, their diverse agricultural products, and their locations near large, urban, tourist-generating areas. Using focus groups, this paper illustrates how entrepreneurial farmers have strengthened Michigan agritourism by fostering producer networks through brochures and web linkages, information sharing in refining (...) the agritourism product, referrals to other agritourism businesses that serve different markets or offer different products, purchase linkages, and a regional approach to establishing agritourism destinations and increase visitation. Successful entrepreneurial, agritourism developers thus work cooperatively, rather than individualistically and competitively. Agritourism destinations facing stiff competition from alternative venues for leisure time and food purchases benefit from supportive linkages that help sustain a critical mass of producers who offer diverse goods, maintain land in agriculture, and thus, reinforce Michigan’s image for agritourism. (shrink)

In Rawls’ influential social contract approach to distributive justice, the fair income distribution is the one that an individual would choose behind a veil of ignorance. Harsanyi treated this situation as a decision under risk and arrived at utilitarianism using expected utility theory. This paper investigates the implications of applying cumulative prospect theory instead, which better describes behavior under risk. I find that the specific type of inequality in bottom-heavy right-skewed income distributions, which includes the log-normal income distribution, could be (...) perceived as desirable. This optimal inequality result contrasts the implications of other social welfare criteria. (shrink)

La crise et la critique implaquables qui ont mine l'idee de subjectivite et de sujet meme - depuis plusieurs decennies - n'etaient-elles pas dues pour une large part, a l'inachevement des concepts et a celui de la theorie? Inachevement qui cependant, s'est trouve tout a fait masque par l'hypertrophie (mille fois denoncee) du sujet, dans la metaphysique, la morale ou la theorie politique des classiques; et d'ailleurs, masque aussi bien pour ses critiques ulterieurs que pour ses promoteurs. Telle est l'hypothese (...) qui meut cet ouvrage. Elle s'approfondit et surtout en vient a se confirmer, lorsque - s'aidant en quelque sorte des apories et des difficultes memes de la theorie classique parvenue a son apogee - l'on introduit plusieurs notions dont l'absence ou bien le developpement insuffisant, devait conduire a ces difficultes; et plus tard a la critique contemporaine, a son tour (en sens negatif), unilaterale et insuffisante. (shrink)

Space being the precondition for human existence, human perception and experience vary responding to different spaces. Modern urban dwellers live in urban space where they seem to have much space mobility but end up living in a homogenized concrete jungle. This fact has influenced, if not defined, modern urban dwellers’ life experience and caused their anxieties about such an existence. However, wilderness, as opposed to urban space, is not merely a type of space, but a way of existence relating to (...) diversity, freedom, and healthy savagery. Civilizational evolution explains the change of human perception of wilderness from fear and desire to conquer to longing and affection, and in this sense the history of the evolution of space perception is also a history of civilization because space and culture are entwined and the more diversified the types of human living space, the more diversified their existences. In the contemporary world, the significance of wilderness not only lies in its resistance to the aforementioned homogenized, unidimensional, urban human existence, but the civilization of wilderness points to a new form of civilization that is intrinsically different from technological civilization for whose disease the civilization of wilderness per se may serve as a possible remedy. (shrink)